Tensile Testing of Carbon Steel in High Pressure Hydrogen

Abstract

An infrastructure of new and existing pipelines and systems will be required to carry and to deliver hydrogen as an alternative energy source under the hydrogen economy. Carbon and low alloy steels of moderate strength are currently used in hydrogen delivery systems as well as in the existing natural gas systems. It is critical to understand the material response of these standard pipeline materials when they are subjected to pressurized hydrogen environments. The methods and results from a testing program to quantify hydrogen effects on mechanical properties of carbon steel pipeline and pipeline weld materials are provided. Tensile properties of one type of steel (A106 Grade B) in base metal, welded and heat affected zone conditions were tested at room temperature in air and high pressure (10.34 MPa or 1500 psig) hydrogen. A general reduction in the materials ability to plastically deform was noted in this material when specimens were tested in hydrogen. Furthermore, the primary mode of fracture was changed from ductile rupture in air to cleavage with secondary tearing in hydrogen. The mechanical test results will be applied in future analyses to evaluate service life of the pipelines. The results are also envisioned to be part of the bases for construction codes and structural integrity demonstrations for hydrogen service pipeline and vessels..

Hydrogen Effects on the Mechanical Properties of Austenitic Stainless Steels - A Compendium of Data from Testing at the Savannah River Laboratory in Support of High Pressure Hydrogen Service

“…However, the tensile ductility suffers significant loss when the hydrogen is present, either externally as the service environment, or internally resulting from extended exposure or precharging. This material behavior (hydrogen embrittlement) is similar in carbon steels [24,25]. • The ductility loss increases as the grain size increases, as shown by 304L testing on the heat treatment effects [13] (Fig.…”

Effect of Hydrogen in Mixed Gases on the Mechanical Properties of Steels—Theoretical Background and Review of Test Results

“…This trend was not found for the corresponding values of the relative notched ultimate tensile strength, UTS (Figure 5c) where no significant degradation was reported up to a fugacity of 10.6 MPa. [6,8,9,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. (b) Tensile RRA of notched specimens for X70 and X80 steels data from [7][8][9]37,38].…”

Development of a Model for Hydrogen-Assisted Fatigue Crack Growth of Pipeline Steel1

“…The upper-bound solution utilizes Eqs. (5), (6), and (10)- (12), in conjunction with the parameter values provided in Table 1. The graphical representation of the upper-bound FCG prediction, as well as a representative pipeline steel HA-FCG response, is provided in Fig.…”

“…According to the ASME B31.12 committee on hydrogen piping and pipelines, a major barrier to the design and installation of steel pipelines for hydrogen transportation has historically been the lack of information on hydrogen-assisted fatigue crack growth (HA-FCG) in pipeline materials. Though noncyclic fracture studies of pipeline steels in gaseous hydrogen have been performed to provide a baseline understanding of the effect of hydrogen upon these loading and failure scenarios [4][5][6][7][8], test results on HA-FCG were lacking because of the expense and difficulty associated with the tests. As such, the ASME committee tasked with creating the hydrogen transportation pipeline design and engineering criteria based the original ASME B31.12-2008 code [9] on the relative response of pipeline steels to monotonic loading in a gaseous hydrogen environment.…”