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The materials sensitivity to hydrogen is studied and measured in this work using the disk pressure testing, whose principle is the comparison of the rupture parameters obtained with metallic membranes tested similarly under helium and hydrogen. Such technique allows various studies and reveals parameters that remain not significant with less sensitive methods. This work presents an overview of numerous experimental results concerning the influence of various factors (material and gas composition, mechanical and heat treatments, type of microstructure...) on the hydrogen embrittlement of ferrous and nonferrous alloys. There are shown synergies between such factors, related to physical and metallurgical phenomena and we give some practical considerations, which can be useful for the evaluation of the safety offered by different materials in contact with hydrogen and for searching ways to improve their behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of hydrogen and temperature (up to 650°C) on an austenitic stainless steel is studied by means of two main techniques: the disk pressure embrittlement and the special biaxial tensile tests. The embrittlement index of the steel is determined as the ratio of rupture pressures of the disks tested similarly under helium and hydrogen. Furthermore, we studied the effect of loading speed and temperature on rupture pressures. We show that the mechanical behavior of the steel is strongly influenced by the apparition of a second phase: the deformation induced martensite, α’. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]