A quantitative description on fracture toughness of steels in hydrogen gas

•A model to predict fracture toughness KIH of steels in hydrogen gas was proposed.•The model describes dependence of KIH on pressure, temperature and yield strength.•The predicted KIH values match very well with experimental data in literatures.•It can predict KIH in high pressure based on experimental data in low pressure.

Fracture toughness or critical stress intensity factor of many steels can be reduced by hydrogen gas. In this paper, a simple quantitative model to predict the fracture toughness of steels in gaseous hydrogen is proposed. This model is based on the assumption that fracture of a cracked body occurs when the maximum principal stress ahead of the crack tip reaches the critical cohesive stress for crack initiation. The critical stress is inversely proportional to the accumulated hydrogen concentration. The notion is that the crack will initiate at the elastic-plastic boundary ahead of the crack tip when hydrogen concentration reaches a maximum value after a long-term hydrogen diffusion assisted by the hydrostatic stress. The model describes the dependence of fracture toughness on hydrogen pressure, temperature and yield strength of steels. It can be used to quantitatively predict fracture toughness of steels in hydrogen gas, particularly in high pressure. Some experimental data reported in literature were used to validate the model, and a good agreement was obtained.