Effect of hydrogen on plastic strain localization and fracture of steels

The effect of interstitial hydrogen atoms on the mechanical properties and plastic strain localization patterns in tensile tested specimens of low-carbon steels have been studied using a double exposure speckle photography technique. It is found that the mechanical properties of low-carbon steels are affected adversely by hydrogen embrittlement. The deformation diagrams were examined for the deformed samples of low-carbon steels. These are found to show all the plastic flow stages: the linear, parabolic and pre-failure stages would occur for the respective values of the exponent n from the Ludwik-Holomon equation.