PSI - Issue 47

Jesús Toribio / Procedia Structural Integrity 47 (2023) 959–964

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Jesús Toribio / Procedia Structural Integrity 00 (2023) 000–000

1. Introduction During recent years, the author of the present paper has been developing some ideas with the aim of establishing an innovative connection between art and science. This paper focuses on one on the key topics developed in such a framework: the relationship between sculpture and fracture mechanics (Toribio, 2017a, 2017b, 2018). 2. Problem statement Materials microstructure plays a relevant role in the matter of crack paths and macroscopic behavior. With regard to cold-drawn eutectoid pearlitic steels, the question of whether (or not) there is a preferential orientation of the two basic microstructural levels (pearlite colonies and ferrite/cementite lamellae) is of primary importance. This work incudes a combined macro- and micro-approach to the fundamental issue of hydrogen embrittlement (HE), hydrogen degradation (HD) or hydrogen assisted cracking (HAC) of cold-drawn eutectoid pearlitic steels used in wire form in prestressed concrete. An analysis is provided of the hydrogen-assisted micro-damage (HAMD) at the finest microscopic level. 3. Progressive (multi-step) cold drawing of pearlitic steels Manufacture of commercial prestressing steels is made by progressive (multi-step) cold drawing of a previously hot-rolled bar with pearlitic microstructure. Fig. 1 shows two views of the real cold drawing chain in the factory and also offers a typical drawing process with six passes through the corresponding dies and their associated diameter reductions in the steel wire.

Fig. 1. Manufacture of commercial prestressing steel wires by multi-pass cold drawing: two photographs of a real ( in situ ) drawing procedure in the factory (top); scheme of a typical drawing process with six passes and progressive diameter reduction (bottom).