Behavior of Hydrogen Invasion in Aluminum Alloys from Different Environments

Hydrogen embrittlement has been known to occur by invading hydrogen (environmental hydrogen) in some metallic materials under several certain conditions, although the cause has not been clarified yet. To clarify the cause, investigations on the behavior of environmental hydrogen in metallic materials are needed. It has been reported that environmental hydrogen invades 7075 aluminum alloy through the second-phase particles (Al7Cu2Fe). However it has not been clarified yet whether environmental hydrogen invades aluminum through the interface between the matrix and second-phase or through the bulk of second-phase particles. In this study, tritium autoradiography technique, TARG, has been applied to an aluminum alloy containing a single kind of second-phase particles (Al7Cu2Fe), to elucidate the invasion behavior of hydrogen from two different environments: tritiated water and tritium gas. In TARG, hydrogen (tritium) atoms that stay in the vicinity of the surface can be detected as silver particles. Silver particles (hydrogen atoms) were primarily detected on the interface between the matrix and second-phase. Thus most of the invading hydrogen is concluded to be trapped by the interface.