Hydrogen embrittlement through the formation of low-energy dislocation nanostructures in nanoprecipitation-strengthened steels.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33177083.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abb6152 and PMC identifier 7673732.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Hydrogen embrittlement is shown to proceed through a previously unidentified mechanism. Upon ingress to the microstructure, hydrogen promotes the formation of low-energy dislocation nanostructures. These are characterized by cell patterns whose misorientation increases with strain, which concomitantly attracts further hydrogen up to a critical amount inducing failure. The appearance of the failure zone resembles the "fish eye" associated to inclusions as stress concentrators, a commonly accepted cause for failure. It is shown that the actual crack initiation is the dislocation nanostructure and its associated strain partitioning.