Innovative Design of Residual Stress and Strain Distributions for Analyzing the Hydrogen Embrittlement Phenomenon in Metallic Materials

Round-notched samples are commonly used for testing the susceptibility to hydrogen embrittlement (HE) of metallic materials. Hydrogen diffusion is influenced by the stress and strain states generated during testing. This state causes hydrogen-assisted micro-damage leading to failure that is due to HE. In this study, it is assumed that hydrogen diffusion can be controlled by modifying such residual stress and strain fields. Thus, the selection of the notch geometry to be used in the experiments becomes a key task. In this paper, different HE behaviors are analyzed in terms of the stress and strain fields obtained under diverse loading conditions (un-preloaded and preloaded causing residual stress and strains) in different notch geometries (shallow notches and deep notches). To achieve this goal, two uncoupled finite element (FE) simulations were carried out: (i) a simulation by FE of the loading sequences applied in the notched geometries for revealing the stress and strain states and (ii) a simulation of hydrogen diffusion assisted by stress and strain, for estimating the hydrogen distributions. According to results, hydrogen accumulation in shallow notches is heavily localized close to the wire surface, whereas for deep notches, hydrogen is more uniformly distributed. The residual stress and plastic strains generated by the applied preload localize maximum hydrogen concentration at deeper points than un-preloaded cases. As results, four different scenarios are established for estimating “a la carte” the HE susceptibility of pearlitic steels just combining two notch depths and the residual stress and strain caused by a preload.