Evaluation on Hydrogen Embrittlement of Material using Nondestructive Test

The objective of this research is to study the effect of various hydrogen charging quantities in austenitic stainless steel using nondestructive technique. The hydrogen charging equipment was designed to make charging the steel, and the specimens were charged for 2, 4, 10 and 24 hours in the equipment. An acoustic emission (AE) technique, nondestructive test, was used to evaluate the dynamic behavior of the hydrogen charged austenitic stainless steel specimen. The tensile load was applied the charged specimen with the attached AE sensor; and elastic waves caused plastic deformation and cracking in the specimen by external tensile loading were caught at the AE sensor and analyzed by the AE parameters such as count, energy, duration time, event and amplitude. In addition, ultrasonic wave was also used to evaluate the degree of hydrogen charging. The velocity and the attenuation ratio of the ultrasonic wave on the specimen with different hydrogen charging conditions were measured. The velocity was not changed but the attenuation ratio was linearly increased with the hydrogen charging time. The relationship between the results of nondestructive test including AE test and ultrasonic test and fractographic analysis by using SEM was discussed.