Investigation of Hydrogen Diffusion Profile of Different Metallic Materials for a Better Understanding of Hydrogen Embrittlement

Abstract

In this study, hydrogen diffusion profiles of different metallic materials were investigated. To model hydrogen diffusion, 1D and 2D mass diffusion models were prepared in MATLAB. Iron, nickel and titanium were selected as a material of choice to represent body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, and hexagonal closed paced crystal structures, respectively. In addition, hydrogen back diffusion profiles were also modeled after certain baking times. Current results reveal that hydrogen diffusion depth depends on the microstructure, energy barrier model, temperature, and charging time. In addition, baking can help for back diffusion of hydrogen and can be utilized as hydrogen embrittlement prevention method. Since hydrogen diffusion is very crucial step to understand and evaluate hydrogen embrittlement, current set of results constitutes an important guideline for hydrogen diffusion calculations and ideal baking time for hydrogen back diffusion for different materials. Furthermore, these results can be used to evaluate hydrogen content inside the material over expensive and hard to find experimental facilities such as, thermal desorption spectroscopy.