This study was conducted to compare the hydrogen embrittlement (HE) resistance of austempered 4340 steel with quenched and tempered (Q&T) 4340 steel with an identical yield strength (YS) of 1340 MPa (194 ksi). A baseline comparison showed that the austempered steel with a lower bainite microstructure exhibited higher hardness, tensile strengths, Charpy V-notch (CVN) impact toughness, and ductility at both low 233 K (-40 F) and ambient temperatures, as compared to the Q&T steel with a martensite microstructure. After machining and just prior to testing, subsized CVN specimens and notched bend specimens were immersed in hydrochloric acid-water baths. The HE resistance was higher for the austempered steel than the Q&T steel. No differences in room-temperature CVN energy resulted from hydrogen charging of the austempered and Q&T steels vs their unexposed counterparts. However, in the notched bend specimens, the hydrogen charging caused significant peak load decreases (40 pct) for the Q&T steel, while the austempered steel exhibited only small (6 pct) decreases in peak load. Intergranular (IG) fracture occurred solely in the charged Q&T bend samples, which is further evidence of their embrittlement.

This study investigated the microstructure and fatigue properties of hydroformed sections of the 5754 and 6063 aluminum alloys. The second-phase particles in 6063-T7 are identified as a mixture of Al 12 Fe 3 Si and Al 9 Fe 2 Si 2 , with a slightly higher fraction of the former. The constituent particles in the 5754 alloy are Al 4 Mn-type hexagonal compounds, where Mn is partially substituted by various other elements, resulting in Al 4 (Fe,Mn,Si,Cr). The results show that despite its lower yield strength, the hydroformed 5754 alloy has higher ultimate tensile strength, ductility, and, more importantly, higher fatigue resistance than the 6063 material. Both crystallographic stage I and noncrystallographic stage II cracking are found in the 6063-T7 samples, but only stage II cracking is observed in the 5754 alloy. This implies that the low fatigue strength of 6063-T7 is related to its relatively large grain size, resulting in rapid stage I crack propagation. The higher fatigue lives of the 5754 alloy compared to the 6063 alloy in both the low-and high-cycle life regimes are due to the increased fatiguecrack-initiation and propagation resistance of the 5754 alloy and its probable cyclic strain-hardening behavior.

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The quality of a magnesium die casting is likely dependent on the quality of the feed stock ingot material. Therefore, both DaimlerChrysler and General Motors have established quality assurance measures that include analysis of magnesium ingots. These processes include chemical analysis, corrosion testing, fast neutron activation analysis, and metallography. Optical emission spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy, and gravimetric analysis are several methods for determining the chemical composition of the material. Fast neutron activation analysis, image analysis and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy are used to quantify ingot cleanliness. These experimental techniques are described and discussed in this paper, and example case studies are presented for illustration.