An experimental-numerical screening method for assessing environmentally assisted degradation in high strength steels

• In this work, an experimental-numerical screening method for studying the elastic-plastic properties in high strength steel subjected to environmentally assisted degradation due to hydrogen is proposed. The experiments were performed on single-edge-notch bend specimens loaded with a monotonic constant displacement rate, and the specimens were electrochemically hydrogen pre-charged and/or in-situ. A systematic investigation was conducted of the influence of current density, pre-charging time and loading rate on the fracture mechanical properties. It was found that the loading rate had the greatest effect on the J-R curves, and that the environmental ductile-to-brittle transition region was obtained in a less than a day of experimental time. In this transition region it was found from the fractography that the dominating mode of failure changed from dimple to dominating intergranular fracture.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Environmentally assisted degradation

Elastic-plastic fracture mechanics

Lath Martensite

Electrochemical hydrogen charging

Fractography

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)