The effect of lithium on the mechanical characteristics of austenitic stainless steels

Liquid metal embrittlement and deformation induced martensite: The case of 316 L austenitic steel LME by liquid eutectic gallium-indium

“…A few other occurrences have been reported at intermediate temperature in alkali liquid metals. AISI 304L steel was found to have an intergranular LME fracture mode in liquid sodium and liquid lithium at lower temperature (between 200°C and 400°C) with moderate to limited mechanical degradation [2,3,4]. Similar intergranular cracking of the 304 austenitic steel was also noticed during tertiary creep in sodium at 550°C [5].…”

Tensile properties of high-purity nickel stressed in alkali metal environments

“…An early paper by Parikh [9] reported that 99.9% pure nickel failed in lithium at stresses less than that needed to cause yielding, plastic deformation, and more recently Lynch [10] found that 99.5% pure nickel was severely embrittled and produced fracture surfaces that were 98% intergranular. Lithium has been reported also to embrittle iron and ferritic steels [11 13], copper [14] and nickel-copper alloys [9], but not austenitic stainless steels [15][16][17][18][19]. However, the mechanical degradation of copper and iron is not classical LME, being initiated by the formation of a Cu4 Li intermetallic compound and reaction with carbon in iron grain boundaries to form a voluminous LizC 2. Sodium environments are far more benign.…”