How to prevent metal embrittlement
When a metal tube lines an oil well thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, that metal had better be solid and reliable. Unfortunately, the environment in such deep wells is often rich in hydrogen, a gas that can penetrate high-tech alloys and make them brittle — making fractures and leaks more likely. Now researchers at MIT have figured out exactly which characteristics of a metal structure tend to foster this embrittlement in the presence of hydrogen. More significantly, they have also determined that simple changes in processing can modify the structure in a way that may greatly reduce the chances of damage, extending the safe operating lifetime of such tubing. Their findings are published this week in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper co-written by MIT faculty members Michael Demkowicz and Silvija Gradečak, postdoc Matteo Seita, and doctoral student John Hanson. “We want to engineer reliability into the metal,”...