Effect of Indentation Load on Vickers Hardness of Austenitic Stainless Steel After Hydrogen Charging

In order to reveal the effect of indentation load on Vickers hardness of austenitic stainless steel after hydrogen charging, the Vickers hardness measurements have been conducted with three different indentation load of 0.49, 1.96 and 9.80 N on the surface of type 316L austenitic stainless steel after hydrogen charging. Relationship between plastic deformation behavior during indentation process and hydrogen absorption behavior was revealed. In the Vickers hardness test, Vickers hardness keeps same value though the indentation load varies. Needless to say, the value did not depend on magnitude of the indentation load before hydrogen charging in the present study. However, the Vickers hardness increased along with hydrogen charging time and, interestingly, the increase in the Vickers hardness due to the presence of hydrogen depends on magnitude of the indentation load. In the load of 0.49 N and 9.80 N, the Vickers hardness has a maximum value of 3.04 and 2.04 GPa which is 1.58 and 1.15 times larger than value of 1.73 and 1.70 GPa before hydrogen charging, respectively. The hydrogen-induced hardening behavior observed by the Vickers hardness tests employing different indentation load would be evaluated by the relationship between the plastic deformation depth and the hydrogen absorption depth.