Digital Repository, ICF12, Ottawa 2009

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Role of Hydrogen in Crack Growth in Pipeline steels Exposed to near Neutral pH Soil Environments
W. Chen, Richard Kania, Bob Worthingham, S. Kariyawasam

Last modified: 2013-05-07

Abstract


This paper reports the crack growth behavior of pipeline steels in near-neutral pH environments. Crack growth data were obtained using compact tension (CT) specimens exposed to two near-neutral pH environments. The surface of CT specimens was masked either with or without coatings. The coverage of sample surface reduces the generation of hydrogen resulting from free corrosion of iron. This has caused a substantial reduction of crack growth rate and a different dependence of crack growth behavior on Kmax, ΔK, loading frequency and environments. The growth rate data were further analyzed based on recent developed true corrosion fatigue model for pipeline steels in near neutral pH environments, from which the relative contribution of dissolution to cracking and hydrogen facilitated cracking was determined.

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