Stress-corrosion cracking sensitization by hydrogen upon oxidation of nickel-base alloys by water – An experiment-guided first-principles study

This work describes a viable hydrogen-induced sensitisation process toward stress corrosion cracking in chromia-forming nickel base alloys owing to oxidation by water. A mechanistic chemical understanding of the stress corrosion based on repeated cracking and re-healing of the oxide scale emerges from experiment-guided first-principles calculations. Piggybacking processes during repeated oxide scale cracking-healing cycles are understood to cause sensitisation towards the formation and growth of macroscopic cracks. Under light-water reactor conditions, the healed oxide scale comprises an outer region composed of chromium depleted nickel ferrite, and non-protective chromia, nickel oxide, nickel hydroxide. An inner nickel iron chromite layer provides the passivating barrier that controls the oxidation rate at a steady state. Early during the re-healing of a crack in the oxide scale, water is conveyed to the alloy/scale interface by hydration/dehydration of composite nickel oxy-hydroxide Ni(OH)2∙NiO inclusions in the scale. At later stages, Ni(OH)2∙NiO serves as oxidant of preferentially chromium, while hydrogen is released as H2(g) into the primary water or becomes picked up by the alloy, possibly while assisting in the reduction of NiO to form nickel metal particles. Oxidation by water equivalents at the confining alloy/scale interface favours hydrogen pick-up in the alloy that becomes increasingly detrimental owing to enrichment and inward diffusion of hydrogen along alloy grain boundaries where pinning of alloy vacancies causes mitigation of outward diffusion of chromium, which in turn hampers crack re-healing while promoting alloy embrittlement.