Nature Materials· 2021Q1
Chemical heterogeneity enhances hydrogen resistance in high-strength steels
- 228citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2021year
Short summary
Exploiting chemical heterogeneity in high-strength steels, specifically creating manganese-rich zones, doubles hydrogen embrittlement resistance without sacrificing strength or ductility.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Chemical heterogeneity, typically avoided, is exploited to enhance hydrogen embrittlement resistance.
- Manganese-rich zones act as local buffer regions, improving crack resistance and hydrogen trapping.
- This approach doubles hydrogen embrittlement resistance without compromising strength or ductility.
- The strategy is applicable to manganese-containing high-strength steels and offers a scalable microstructural solution.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
The antagonism between strength and resistance to hydrogen embrittlement in metallic materials is an intrinsic obstacle to the design of lightweight yet reliable structural components operated in hydrogen-containing environments. Economical and scalable microstructural solutions to this challenge must be found. Here, we introduce a counterintuitive strategy to exploit the typically undesired chemical heterogeneity within the material's microstructure that enables local enhancement of crack resistance and local hydrogen trapping. We use this approach in a manganese-containing high-strength steel and produce a high dispersion of manganese-rich zones within the microstructure. These solute-rich buffer regions allow for local micro-tuning of the phase stability, arresting hydrogen-induced microcracks and thus interrupting the percolation of hydrogen-assisted damage. This results in a superior hydrogen embrittlement resistance (better by a factor of two) without sacrificing the material's strength and ductility. The strategy of exploiting chemical heterogeneities, rather than avoiding them, broadens the horizon for microstructure engineering via advanced thermomechanical processing.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Nature Materials, 2021 · DOI ↗
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Field: Metals and Alloys
Metals and AlloysMaterials Science