Hydrogen is increasingly important in energy-related fields, particularly regarding its impact on materials and its potential for energy storage solutions to address our growing energy demands. High-performance materials, such as superalloys used in stationary gas turbines or aircraft engine components, frequently come into contact with hydrogen. This exposure often results in hydrogen embrittlement of the material, ultimately leading to fracture and the end of the component’s service life.
In this contribution, we discuss the influence of electrochemical and high-pressure hydrogen loading on the performance of superalloy materials. Neutron [1] and X-ray diffraction [2] as probes are very well suited to monitor the change of lattice constants in dependence of hydrogen content to understand the microstructure behaviour. Other neutron methods as neutron imaging or the derived method of prompt gamma activation analysis are complementary techniques to expand the alloy studies. A self-developed testing machine for loading, compression and heating [3] enables a comparison of hydrogen-free and hydrogen-loaded samples in regard to the mechanical performance.
Devices for hydrogen detection up to ppm level with melting process or measurements of the diffusibility in dependence of temperature broaden the determination of the hydrogen amount to correlate the findings with the scattering methods.