| Modern ultra high strength steels have been developed with outstanding combinations of strength and fracture toughness but lack intrinsic corrosion resistance. Such steels are used by the military for aircraft components such as landing gears but require coatings and cathodic protection which can lead to various rates of hydrogen production depending on material, geometry, and electro(chemistry). The susceptibility of such steels to internal hydrogen embrittlement (IHE) and hydrogen environment embrittlement (HEE) limits their use in marine environments.; The objective of this research is to develop the understanding necessary to design coated ultra high strength steels that resist HEE when stressed in marine environments. The cause of HEE is the establishment of high diffusible hydrogen concentrations (CH,diff) at the crack tip. There is a window of applied potentials (Eapplied) where susceptibility to HEE is reduced because CH,diff is reduced. However, Eapplied itself does not yield insight as to the exact conditions at the crack tip. Ohmic potential drop and electrochemical/chemical reactions in the crack can lead to a significantly different environment at the crack tip than on the surface. The issues that hinder understanding of HEE center on the capability to quantify and ultimately predict crack tip hydrogen concentrations (C H,Tip) relative to critical concentrations that trigger fracture as a function of Eapplied.; CH,tip was characterized using a multi-pronged approach. Scaling laws were developed to enable measurements of E and pH in a scaled-up crack as a function of the scaling parameter, x2/G and Eapplied . Such measurements were correlated with CH,diff using an experimentally determined hydrogen uptake law based on first order absorption laws and trapping theory. CH,diff values were then used as inputs into existing micromechanical models for KTH and da/dtII to predict cracking susceptibility.; The scientific contributions of this work include the ability to elucidate the material, geometry, and environmental factors that impact CH,diff . The main engineering contribution is the development of a methodology to predict useful engineering parameters, KTH and da/dtII , that can be utilized in damage tolerant analysis as a function of Eapplied and geometry for a particular material. This methodology can then be applied to other materials. |
