Quantification of hydrogen effective diffusion coefficients and effusion behavior in duplex stainless steel weld metals

Abstract

Modern methods like carrier gas hot extraction enable the quantification of dissolved hydrogen as well as the determination of the hydrogen trapping and diffusion behavior. This method was applied in order to compare for the first time the hydrogen diffusion and trapping behavior in electrochemically charged and welded duplex stainless steel (1.4462). Characteristic extraction temperatures (400, 650, and 900 °C) were used to quantify the amounts of diffusible hydrogen and trapped hydrogen for the base material and the weld metal, and in order to calculate the effective diffusion coefficients corresponding to the specific temperature. The comparison of the charging methods showed that electrochemically charged samples have a higher content of diffusible hydrogen than the welded samples. In addition, the effusion times increase in welded samples, which indicate a higher amount of trapped hydrogen. In electrochemically charged weld samples, a significant lower concentration of hydrogen was determined than in the base material. In addition, the effective diffusion coefficients were calculated for every microstructure and charging method. It was found that the base material has a higher effective hydrogen diffusion coefficient than that of the weld metal. This effect is due to the tortuous path of hydrogen diffusion in the weld metal.