A new venue toward predicting the role of hydrogen embrittlement on metallic materials

Abstract

This paper presents a new crystal plasticity formulation to predict the role of hydrogen embrittlement on the mechanical behavior of metallic materials. Specifically, a series of experiments were carried out to monitor the role of hydrogen interstitial content on the uniaxial tensile deformation response of iron alloyed with hydrogen, and the classical Voce hardening scheme was modified to account for the shear stresses imposed on arrested dislocations due to the surrounding hydrogen interstitials. The proposed set of physically grounded crystal plasticity formulations successfully predicted the deformation response of iron in the presence of different degrees of hydrogen embrittlement. Moreover, the combined experimental and modeling effort presented herein opens a new venue for predicting the alterations in the performance of metallic materials, where the hydrogen embrittlement is unavoidable.