Effect of Preliminary Hydrogenation–Dehydrogenation of Low-Alloy Steel on its Ability to Absorb Electrochemical Hydrogen

Abstract

It is shown that the procedure of preliminary cyclic hydrogenation-dehydrogenation of ferrite-pearlite pipe steel strongly affects its ability to absorb electrochemical hydrogen whose amount increases with the number of these cycles. The concentration of hydrogen adsorbed by the subsurface layers of the metal, the concentration of hydrogen absorbed by the volume of the metal, and its total concentration in the metal are found depending on the number of hydrogenation-dehydrogenation cycles. It is established that, for the analyzed cases, the procedure of preliminary hydrogenation-dehydrogenation increases the ability of steel to absorb hydrogen by a factor of 1.2–2.