Hydrogen-enhanced cracking revealed by micro-cantilever bending test inside environmental scanning electron microscope.

To evaluate the hydrogen (H)-induced embrittlement in iron aluminium intermetallics, especially the one with stoichiometric composition of 50 at.% Al, a novel micro-cantilever bending test was applied within an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM), which provides both a full process monitoring and a clean, H-charging condition. Two sets of cantilevers were analysed in this work: one set of un-notched cantilevers, and the other set with focused ion beam-milled notch laying on two crystallographic planes: (010) and (110).

Hydrogen enhanced cracking studies on Fe-3wt%Si single and bi-crystal microcantilevers.

Hydrogen (H) enhanced cracking was studied in Fe-3wt%Si by means of electrochemical microcantilever bending test. It was clearly shown that the presence of H causes hydrogen embrittlement (HE) by triggering crack initiation and propagation at the notch where stress concentration is existing. Additionally, the effect of carbon content and the presence of a grain boundary (GB) in the cantilever were studied.