Numerical Analysis of the Coupling between Hydrogen Diffusion and Mechanical Behavior near the Crack Tip of Titanium

Hydrogen plays a detrimental effect on the degeneration of titanium and its alloys, and it is very important to quantify the hydrogen concentration when estimating the microstructure evaluation of titanium and its alloys in a hydrogen environment. In this paper, the hydrogen atoms are assumed to reside in interstitial sites and in trapping sites such as dislocations, and a mechanic-diffusion coupled model was proposed to describe the stress effects on the diffusion of hydrogen in titanium. A titanium plate with a central crack was modeled to verify the mechanic-diffusion model, and it is solved by the finite element method in commercial software COMSOL. The results indicate that hydrogen diffusion near the crack is determined by the stress state. When the stress state of the crack tip is elastic, the hydrogen will diffuse from both sides of the crack towards the tip and lead to the highest hydrogen concentration in the crack tip. When a plastic zone exists in front of the crack tip, the highest hydrogen concentration at crack surface deviates to the side near the crack tip; a hydrogen concentration peak exists at a characterized distance in front of crack tip initially and then diminishes with the diffusion process. The proposed model is expected to solve the hydrogen concentration under stress in more complex structures.