Dynamic Fracture Processes in Hydrogen Charged Metals and Alloys

Speaker: Dr. Wendy Gu

Abstract
The development of hydrogen resistant alloys is critical to the nuclear and oil and gas industries. Hydrogen is known to degrade the mechanical properties of many steels and superalloys, but the underlying mechanisms are challenging to understand because of the dynamic processes, and wide range of length and time scales that are involved. Here, I describe our development of in-situ techniques for studying hydrogen embrittlement using synchrotron transmission X-ray microscopy (TXM) and Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM). We find that mechanical strain leads to hydrogen segregation to high angle grain boundaries, which become the sites where fracture occurs.