Novel Methods for Prevention of Hydrogen Embrittlement in Iron

Abstract

Iron is the most widely used metal in the world. However, hydrogen embrittlement in steels—iron based alloys—is an important issue related to the safety of our infrastructure, such as railroads and bridges. Therefore, the prevention of hydrogen embrittlement in steels is necessary. In the present study, we demonstrate two novel methods for the prevention of hydrogen embrittlement in iron: one involves the low-energy implantation of helium, which is usually an element harmful to metals, into iron, the other is inducing damage to the iron surface by ion irradiation. In general, irradiation with high-energy particles leads to metal brittleness. In the former method, the driving force for hydrogen embrittlement in iron is weakened, in the latter method, hydrogen diffusion in iron is prevented because of trapping of hydrogen atoms in the vacancies produced by the irradiation. As a result, hydrogen embrittlement in iron was suppressed by both methods.

Comparative study on the effects of Cr, V, and Mo carbides for hydrogen-embrittlement resistance of tempered martensitic steel

“…High-strength steels have been actively developed in the steel industry to secure competitiveness in the market. Such trends have raised the importance of the hydrogen embrittlement (HE) issue since high-strength steels, such as a tempered martensitic steel, are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon 1 . A high density of dislocations in the lath structure and film-like cementite in a tempered martensitic steel leads to high susceptibility to the HE 2 , 3 .…”

Ion Implantation in the Form of Layers: A Novel Method to Surface Properties

“…Xu et al restricted the hydrogen diffusion in the iron lattice by trapping hydrogen atoms in the vacancies produced by irradiation. They consequently observed suppressed hydrogen embrittlement (Xu & Zhang, 2017).…”

“…The micro-cracks are formed due to the formation of gas bubbles, however, the nature of the produced gas bubbles depends upon the host material. The trapped bubble in host matrix exerts pressure on grain boundaries, pushing them away from each other (Song & Curtin, 2012;Xu & Zhang, 2017). This phenomenon leads to metal failure called hydrogen-induced embrittlement.…”

Hydrogen in α-iron: role of phonons in the diffusion of interstitials at high temperature

“…There are currently several promising strategies trying to describe, understand and link the intervening mechanisms at several scales (multiscale approach) 3,10 . Likewise, many experimental studies have adopted the same approach and characterised these mechanisms from the atomic scale to the macroscopic one 6,11–13 .…”