The Effect of Hydrogen on Fluctuation Embrittlement of Aluminum

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the main processes occurring during the generation of vacancies in aluminum in the presence of hydrogen by ab initio methods using the SCAN functional. Hydrogen is shown to reduce the generation energy of vacancies from 2.8 to 0.8 eV. In this case, the eight hydrogen atoms located in the tetrahedral lattice voids around single aluminum atom greatly facilitate its movement to the interstitial site. The dependence of the activation energy of hydrogen embrittlement of aluminum on the hydrogen concentration in aluminum and temperature is calculated based on the kinetic strength concept. Hydrogen is shown to reduce the time of aluminum destruction only if its mole fraction in aluminum is greater than the critical level (~ 3 × 10^–4 at T = 293 K).