PSI - Issue 81

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ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 81 (2026) 92–94

© 2026 The Authors. Copy from the contract: Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of DMDP 2025 organizers Keywords: microstructural integrity; cold drawn pearlitic steel; commercial prestressing steel wire; environmentally assisted cracking (EAC); stress corrosion cracking (SCC); hydrogen assisted cracking (HAC); hydrogen assisted fracture (HAF); hydrogen-assisted micro-damage (HAMD); hydrogen embrittlemet (HE); tearing topography surface (TTS); locally anisotropic hydrogen embrittlement; micro-cracking paths. 1. Introduction Environmentally assisted cracking is a problem of major general concern in civil and structural engineering, either in the form of localized anodic dissolution (or pure stress corrosion cracking) or as hydrogen embrittlement (HE). Cl – ions can induce the fracture of the passive film that would be formed at a pH of 12.5, so that the pH inside the pit would decrease, cf. Hredil and Toribio (2014), thereby enhancing a HE mechanism, a really dangerous phenomenon in prestressed concrete structures, e.g., motorway viaducts where accidents have been reported by Vehovar et al. (1998) due to the degrading action of hydrogen on the prestressing steel wire. Abstract The paper studies the local anisotropy of hydrogen embrittlement (HE) in heavily cold drawn pearlitic steels supplied as prestressing steel wires for prestressed concrete. To this end, slow strain rate tests (SSRT) were performed on initially-smooth samples of cold drawn pearlitic steel (commercial prestressing steel wires) subjected to tensile loading in aggressive environment promoted by a corrosion cell. Two testing rates were used: one moderately fast (0.1 mm/min) and another moderately slow (0.01 mm/min). The electro-chemical potential ranged between – 1100 mV SCE and – 1400 mV SCE (cathodic conditions) to promote hydrogen embrittlement (HE). Axial micro-cracking paths were observed (local crack path deflection) and locally anisotropic HE behaviour was exhibited by the specimens but the phenomenon is strictly local, because the triaxiality level is not high enough to produce global crack path deflection in the presence of hydrogen. The anisotropic fracture behaviour shows marked deviations of the fracture path from the initial fracture zone till the fracture end zone, such deviations being higher than those observed in the specimens failing in inert environment. VIII International Conference “In -service Damage of Materi als: Diagnostics and Prediction” (DMDP 2025) Local anisotropy of hydrogen embrittlement in cold drawn pearlitic steels supplied in the form of prestressing wires: A Picassian Approach Jesús Toribio*, Francisco-Javier Ayaso, Antonio Fernández-Viña, Myroslava Hredil Fracture & Structural Integrity Research Group (FSIRG), University of Salamanca (USAL) E.P.S., Campus Viriato, Avda. Requejo 33, 49022 Zamora, Spain

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34-677566723; fax: +34-980545002. E-mail address: toribio@usal.es

2452-3216 © 2026 The Authors. Copy from the contract: Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of DMDP 2025 organizers 10.1016/j.prostr.2026.03.016