Hydrogen environment embrittlement evaluation in fatigue properties of stainless steel SUS304L at cryogenic temperatures

Abstract

A very simple and safe mechanical properties testing procedure to evaluate hydrogen environment embrittlement (HEE) in the environment of high pressure and low temperature hydrogen has been developed. In this method, the high-pressure hydrogen environment is produced just inside the hole in the specimen. In this work, the effect of HEE on fatigue property for an austenitic stainless steel SUS304L was evaluated at 298, 190, and 20 K. The tests at 20 K were carried out using a cryostat with a Gifford-McMahan (GM) refrigerator. It took about 10 hours to cool specimens from room temperature to 20 K in the cryostat. The effect of HEE in fatigue properties was observed at higher stress level in room temperature and 190 K, but it was not clear at 20 K. © 2010 American Institute of physics.