17 - Corrosion and Hydrogen Fatigue at Different Scales
Résumé
Corrosion's detrimental effect on the fatigue life of materials has been recognized for a long time. The first studies in this domain date back to 1910. Nevertheless, the mechanisms involved in corrosion fatigue damage remain among the most difficult to identify and to take into account in engineering applications. Corrosion fatigue can be defined as the reaction of the material to cyclic loading (fatigue) combined with an aggressive environment (corrosion). It is important to emphasize the term “combined” in the definition because many studies have shown that neither cyclic loading in air, nor corrosion can reproduce the same damage mechanisms separately: it is a strong coupling. These couplings are observed in almost all environments and affect many industrial sectors. Corrosion fatigue research has been undertaken mainly in two environments: gaseous and aqueous. The approximation of these two environments is possible in the case where cracking is assisted by hydrogen for example.