Experimental investigation on Hydrogen embrittlement of EN47 Spring steel

Abstract

Carbon steel is one of the significant engineering materials used in industrial and automotive sector. Most of the engineering metals are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE). It is an inherent phenomenon, which will occur during the course of service life and leads to pre mature failure of the component. In view of this, an experimental study was conducted to investigate the failure behavior of EN47 in a hydrogen simulated environment. The immersion type hydrogen charging method was adopted. The effect of HE was explored through conventional tensile testing. Experimentations were carried out according to ASTM E8 Standards. The tensile behavior of spring steel and effect of hydrogen interaction with materials was studied. The treated test material experience brittle to ductile transition exhibiting mixed mode fracture morphology on fracture surfaces, often considered being confirmation of failure through HE. Hydrogen charging causes the samples to become brittle, and reduced the plastic deformability. From the test results it can be interfered that the hydrogen charged specimen exhibits loss of ductility and also reduced the ultimate strength.