1982 Volume 51 Issue 3 Pages 309-314
Hydrogen-assisted crack propagation and cracking in as-received HY80 steel were directly observed. Metallographic examination of cracks was performed using the etchant of picric acid with wetting agent. Direct observation of crack propagation shows that before microcracks start to grow localized yielding occurs in advance of crack tip and subsequently evolution of hydrogen occurs, and then microcracks grew into macrocracks, accompanying thus periodic process.
Metallographic examinations of cracks exhibited that the incidence of cracking was predominantly high at bands and the presence of bands seemed to play very important roles in hydrogen-assisted cracking in HAZ.
