Direct evaluation of grain boundary hydrogen embrittlement: A micro-mechanical approach

In order to directly investigate the grain boundary (GB) hydrogen embrittlement in polycrystalline materials, a novel micro-mechanical testing method was developed. By combining a site-specific sampling technique and a high-voltage environmental transmission electron microscope (HV ETEM), the fracture property of micro-cantilever specimens fabricated from the same GB in a nickel-aluminide (Ni3Al) polycrystal was critically compared in environments with/without hydrogen (H2) gas. For randomly oriented GBs, brittle fracture nucleation accompanied by plastic deformation was observed in a H2-containing environment except for ones with small orientation difference. No GB fracture was observed for coherent Σ3 boundaries. It also appeared that the similitude of the hydrogen-enhanced decohesion (HEDE) mechanism was still valid even for the submicron-scale specimens.