INFLUENCE OF DRAWING-INDUCED RESIDUAL STRESSES AND STRAINS ON HYDROGEN EMBRITTLEMENT OF COLD DRAWN WIRES

Hydrogen embrittlement (HE) plays a relevant role in the performance of cold-drawn prestressing steel wires in harsh environments. To this end, the knowledge of residual stresses and plastic strains in wires due to cold-drawing, as well as of wires hydrogenation from harsh environments are the keys to successful predictions of wire lives. This paper advances previous analyses of HE in cold-drawn prestressing wires via numerical modelling, first, of the whole cold-drawing process (all the stages of cold drawing) to gain the distributions of residual stresses and plastic strains, and next, of the stress-strain assisted hydrogen diffusion in wires towards creation of the conditions for HE nucleation. Generated results prove the relevant role of residual stress-and-strain field in hydrogen accumulation in the wires, as well as their possible consequences for HE.