Abstract
Fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are being developed as a measure of resolving global environment problems. In the FCVs, high-pressure (35MPa) hydrogen has been being used as the fuel, contained in type-3 tank composed of 6061-aluminum-alloy liner and surrounding carbon-fiber-reinforced-plastics layer. However, the mileage per a filling of FCVs is not as long as that of gasoline vehicles. Thus, replacing the 6061 alloy by a high-strength aluminum alloy is demanded to increase the mileage by raising the initial pressure to 70MPa. In order to check the safety of the hydrogen tank, investigation on the behavior of hydrogen as well as on the hydrogen assisted embrittlement is required. Although hydrogen microprint technique (HMPT) has been known to be effective to investigate the hydrogen behavior, only a few percents of hydrogen was reported to be detectable. Ion-plating has been report to increase the detection efficiency of hydrogen. In this research, hydrogen behavior in ion-plated pure aluminum plate during tensile deformation has been investigated by means of HMPT. Aluminum plate of 99.99% purity was ion-plated with Sn and then charged with hydrogen either with or without tensile deformation. In either specimen no hydrogen was detected. The results obtained were discussed in comparison with the previous report in terms of plating conditions.
