Effect of hydrogen on low-cycle fatigue behavior of HRB400 steel under asymmetric cyclic loading

This paper focuses on the study of ductility changes, ratcheting, and low-cycle fatigue behavior of materials after hydrogen charging. Hot-rolled ribbed bar 400 (HRB400) steel was electrochemically charged with H2SO4 solution, and the samples subjected to different hydrogen charging times were subjected to quasi-static tensile and low-cycle fatigue tests under asymmetric cyclic loading. The tests indicated that hydrogen charging changed the initial yield stress of the material, but the ultimate strength remained almost unchanged; hydrogen charging significantly changed the cyclic hysteresis behavior of the material, which increased the elastic range of the stable hysteresis curve; hydrogen charging changed the pattern of ratcheting deformation. The pattern of ratcheting deformation in the later stage was very different from that of the sample without hydrogen charging; hydrogen charging reduced the ductility of the material and resulted in a significant decrease in fatigue life. The fracturing of the hydrogen-charged samples exhibited apparent quasi-cleavage and intergranular fracture characteristics. The non-hydrogen-charged samples had two failure modes (fatigue failure and increased ratcheting deformation resulting in necking instability), whereas the hydrogen-charged samples had only one failure mode of fatigue failure. Based on the experimental analysis, a fatigue life equation that simultaneously considers the effect of hydrogen embrittlement index, mean stress, and stress amplitude is proposed. The equation was used to predict the low-cycle fatigue life of hydrogen-charged specimens under asymmetric cyclic loading, and the error between the results and the measured values was in the two-factor band.