TY - JOUR
T1 - Switching nanoprecipitates to resist hydrogen embrittlement in high-strength aluminum alloys
AU - Wang, Yafei
AU - Sharma, Bhupendra
AU - Xu, Yuantao
AU - Shimizu, Kazuyuki
AU - Fujihara, Hiro
AU - Hirayama, Kyosuke
AU - Takeuchi, Akihisa
AU - Uesugi, Masayuki
AU - Cheng, Guangxu
AU - Toda, Hiroyuki
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute for supporting the synchrotron radiation experiments at SPring-8 through proposal number 2020A1796/1084. We thank Ms. Chiharu Koga for the assistance in image acquisition at Spring-8, and Mr. Yuki Fukuda for performing the thermal desorption analysis. We thank Ms. Huihui Zhu at the University of Science and Technology Beijing for her contribution to the APT experiments. H Toda acknowledges the financial support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency through Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) project (grant JPMJCR-1995) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through the KAKENH project (grant JP21H04624).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Hydrogen drastically embrittles high-strength aluminum alloys, which impedes efforts to develop ultrastrong components in the aerospace and transportation industries. Understanding and utilizing the interaction of hydrogen with core strengthening elements in aluminum alloys, particularly nanoprecipitates, are critical to break this bottleneck. Herein, we show that hydrogen embrittlement of aluminum alloys can be largely suppressed by switching nanoprecipitates from the η phase to the T phase without changing the overall chemical composition. The T phase strongly traps hydrogen and resists hydrogen-assisted crack growth, with a more than 60% reduction in the areal fractions of cracks. The T phase-induced reduction in the concentration of hydrogen at defects and interfaces, which facilitates crack growth, primarily contributes to the suppressed hydrogen embrittlement. Transforming precipitates into strong hydrogen traps is proven to be a potential mitigation strategy for hydrogen embrittlement in aluminum alloys.
AB - Hydrogen drastically embrittles high-strength aluminum alloys, which impedes efforts to develop ultrastrong components in the aerospace and transportation industries. Understanding and utilizing the interaction of hydrogen with core strengthening elements in aluminum alloys, particularly nanoprecipitates, are critical to break this bottleneck. Herein, we show that hydrogen embrittlement of aluminum alloys can be largely suppressed by switching nanoprecipitates from the η phase to the T phase without changing the overall chemical composition. The T phase strongly traps hydrogen and resists hydrogen-assisted crack growth, with a more than 60% reduction in the areal fractions of cracks. The T phase-induced reduction in the concentration of hydrogen at defects and interfaces, which facilitates crack growth, primarily contributes to the suppressed hydrogen embrittlement. Transforming precipitates into strong hydrogen traps is proven to be a potential mitigation strategy for hydrogen embrittlement in aluminum alloys.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-022-34628-4
DO - 10.1038/s41467-022-34628-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 36400773
AN - SCOPUS:85142128823
VL - 13
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 6860
ER -