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The effect of Mo content of 1400 MPa-grade high-strength bolt steel on hydrogen diffusion behavior and the hydrogen evolution reaction were studied using a hydrogen permeation experiment, potentiodynamic polarization tests, thermal desorption spectroscopy, and the first-principle calculation. Two 1400 MPa-grade high-strength bolt steels with different Mo content were used. Based on the potentiodynamic polarization tests, both steels' electrochemical behavior was similar in the test range. The hydrogen permeation experiment showed that the process of hydrogen adsorption and absorption was significantly promoted, and hydrogen desorption and recombination were slightly promoted, with the Mo content increasing from 0.70 to 1.09 wt%. The thermal desorption spectroscopy showed the overall reaction of hydrogen permeation and evolution. The increasing Mo content facilitated hydrogen entry behavior and increased the hydrogen content. According to the first-principle calculation and the density functional theory, this phenomenon is induced by the stronger bonding ability of Mo-H than Fe-H. This work could guide the design of 1400 MPa-grade high-strength bolt steel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coupon tests on the pipeline subjected to metro dynamic DC interference were conducted. The pipe‐to‐soil from 78 sites including off‐potentials (Eoff), on‐potentials (Eon), and corrosion rate data were obtained, and then the dynamic fluctuation parameters of pipe‐to‐soil potentials were analyzed statistically. Further, the Pearson correlation between dynamic statistical parameters of pipe‐to‐soil potentials and corrosion rates was analyzed and showed that the statistical parameter of "roff ⩾ −0.85 V" and "mean[Eoff,cmax]" have a greater correlation with corrosion rate than others. Based on the statistical parameters of Eoff and the machine learning method, the optimal feature subset of the corrosion rate model was selected; meanwhile, it is proved that the negative shift of Eoff plays an important role in the prediction of corrosion rate. Finally, the corrosion rate model for buried steel pipeline under dynamic DC interference was established by random forest (rfr) method on 66 training data, then generalization performance of the model was verified on 12 test data. The results show that mean absolute error and R2 are 0.0358 mm/a and 0.56, respectively, on test data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medium Mn steels have been considered as the next-generation materials for use in the automotive industry due to their excellent strength and ductility balance. To reduce the total weight and improve the safety of vehicles, medium Mn steels look forward to a highly promising future. However, hydrogen-induced delayed cracking is a concern for the use of high strength steels. This work is focused on the service characteristics of two kinds of medium Mn steels under different relative humidity conditions (40%, 60%, 80% and 100%). Under normal relative humidity (about 40%) at 25 °C, the hydrogen concentration in steel is 0.4 ppm. When exposed to higher relative humidity, the hydrogen concentration in steel increases slowly and reaches a stable value, about 0.8 ppm. In slow strain rate tensile tests under different relative humidity conditions, the tensile strength changed, the hydrogen concentration increased and the elongation decreased as well, thereby increasing the hydrogen embrittlement sensitivity. In other words, the smaller the tensile rate applied, the greater the hydrogen embrittlement sensitivity. In constant load tests under different relative humidity conditions, the threshold value of the delayed cracking of M7B ('M' referring to Mn, '7' meaning the content of Mn, 'B' denoting batch annealing) steel maintains a steady value of 0.82 σb (tensile strength). The threshold value of the delayed cracking of M10B significantly changed along with relative humidity. When relative humidity increased from 60% to 80%, the threshold dropped sharply from 0.63 σb to 0.52 σb. We define 80% relative humidity as the 'threshold humidity' for M10B. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low yield strength (~300 MPa) of twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) steels greatly limits their structural applications in the industrial field. Conventional strengthening mechanisms usually cause an enhancement of yield strength but also a severe loss of ductility. In this research, gradient substructures were introduced in the Fe-22Mn-0.6C TWIP steels by different pre-torsional deformation in order to overcome the above limitations. The substructure evolution, mechanical properties, and their origins in gradient-substructured (GS) TWIP steels were measured and compared by electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD), monotonous and loading-unloading-reloading (LUR) tensile tests. It was found that a simple torsional treatment could prepare gradient twins and dislocations in coarse-grained TWIP steel samples depending on torsional strain. The uniaxial tensile tests indicated that a superior combination of high yield strength, high ultimate strength, and considerable ductility was simultaneously obtained in the GS samples. The high yield strength and high ultimate tensile strength were attributed to synergetic strengthening mechanisms, viz., dislocation strengthening, due to the accumulation of high density of dislocations, and very high back stress strengthening due to gradient substructure distribution, which was accommodated through pile-ups of extra geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) across the sample-scale. Additionally, high ductility originated from gradient substructure-induced back stress hardening. The present study is also beneficial to the design efforts of high strength and high ductility of other heterogeneous-structured TWIP alloy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infiltration of hydrogen can weaken the strength and toughness of materials, especially in high-strength steel. Considering the inherent trade-off between strength and toughness in steel design, balancing these two factors with the material's hydrogen embrittlement sensitivity has become a huge challenge in steel design. The long cycle nature of hydrogen embrittlement testing makes the iteration of traditional trial and error methods infeasible for steel development. This work adopts active learning algorithms based on Bayesian and Pareto optimization to iteratively optimize the chemical composition and processing technology of high-strength steel, in order to simultaneously improve its hydrogen filled tensile strength (UTS_H) and hydrogen filled total elongation (TEL_H). After two rounds of iterative optimization, the iterative optimization algorithm significantly improved the strength prediction of materials after hydrogen charging. The machine learning model found 16 types of steel from over 15 million unknown materials. Eight materials showed better comprehensive performance than known data, with one material having a tensile strength exceeding 1800 MPa and an elongation of 12.6%. Subsequent experiments showed that the optimization algorithm demonstrated an understanding of the impact of austenite content on hydrogen embrittlement sensitivity in multiple experiments, and designed high-strength steel resistant to hydrogen embrittlement through the austenite content of martensitic steel. • ML model accurately screens high-strength steels for hydrogen embrittlement resistance. • Iterative use of Bayesian modeling to minimize trial cycle time. • 8 excellent hydrogen embrittlement-resistant materials are screened from 1500 candidate spaces through 2 rounds of iteration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of hydrogen on the twinning evolution in a twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) austenitic steel was investigated at different strain levels. The presence of hydrogen decreased the twin thickness and increased the twin density in individual twin bundles, in comparison with the hydrogen-free condition. This mechanism, reported for the first time, was termed hydrogen-enhanced densified twinning (HEDT). Based on these experimental observations, the effect of hydrogen on twinning was analyzed from the three stages of nucleation, growth and stability. HEDT may elevate the local stress, and thus significantly affect the hydrogen embrittlement (HE) of TWIP steels. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effects of hydrostatic compressive stress in retained austenite (RA) on mechanical properties and hydrogen embrittlement (HE) of the martensitic steels. It was found that a high hydrostatic compressive stress in RA, which was produced by the martensitic transformation, lead to an improvement of ductility for the steels without hydrogen. However, the mechanical properties were different after hydrogen charging. The low hydrostatic compressive stress in RA had little effect on HE resistance, but the high hydrostatic compressive stress (231 MPa) induced the twinning of RA and resulted in the aggravation of the HE sensitivity. Moreover, the detwinning of RA via tempering improved the HE resistance. • The nanotwins retained austenite formed via sub-zero treatment. • High hydrostatic stress leads to an excellent ductility without hydrogen. • The nanotwins retained austenite steel had low hydrogen embrittlement resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, for the first time, the evolution of geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) and statistically stored dislocation (SSD) densities, as well as their roles in strain hardening during mechanical twinning, was experimentally investigated in a tensile-deformed Fe-22Mn-0.6C twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) steel. GND and SSD densities were estimated via EBSD-acquired orientation data and a modified strain hardening model, respectively. The analysis demonstrates that the GND density increases non-linearly due to mechanical twinning. The SSD density increases much faster than the GND density, which shows that multiplication of the SSDs is heavily dependent on the imposed strain level. It is revealed that the GND density is higher at early strain stages (below 0.14 true strain), dominating dislocation hardening, but thereafter the SSD density contributes more. It is also found that the GND density is several times higher in this TWIP steel than in metals or alloys, which deform through dislocation slip only. We attribute this difference to the planar slip of dislocations and the occurrence of mechanical twinning, which leads to much more pile-ups of the GNDs at/near boundaries. Mechanical twinning directly contributes less than 100 MPa to flow stress increment in the studied true strain range of 0 to 0.34. Consequently, depending on dislocation types, dislocation multiplication governs strain hardening at all deformation ranges. The findings provide insight into the evolution behaviors of GNDs and SSDs in TWIP steels, which are particularly important for further understanding of the dynamic Hall-Petch effect and useful for TWIP alloy design efforts. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of back stress strengthening were investigated in Fe-22Mn-0.6C and Fe-22Mn-0.6C-3Al TWIP steels. In contrast to reports found in literature, this study revealed that the high back stress developed in these steels is primarily caused by pile-ups of high density of geometrically necessary dislocations near the grain boundary regions rather than at deformation twins. • Back stress in 22Mn0.6C and 22Mn0.6C3Al TWIP steels was compared using LUR tests. • GND distributions across microstructure of steels were determined using EBSD data. • Deformation twins were less effective for GND accumulation than grain boundaries. • Deformation twins were not leading features responsible for high back stress. • High back stress originated from pile-ups of high GNDs near grain boundary regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]