×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Spring wire material for use in high pressure hydrogen gas?

Spring wire material for use in high pressure hydrogen gas?

Spring wire material for use in high pressure hydrogen gas?

(OP)
Hello,
I am looking for a coil spring material suitable for use in high pressure hydrogen gas up to 6000 psi. Currently we use a 17-7 pH stainless spring and would like to have a substitute for use in hydrogen gas service.  We are concerned that the 17-7 would be susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement when used in hydrogen gas service.

Based upon what I have researched the common austenitic stainless steels such as 304 and 316 have good resistance to hydrogen embrittlement but their yield strength is too low.

There is some research showing that nitrogen strengthened austenitic stainless steels might be a good choice for such a spring. XM-28 (Nitronic 32) stainless seems to be available as spring wire and has strengths high enough to meet our requirements. However, I have not found any data on XM-28's susceptibility to hydrogen embrittlement.

Does anyone have an insight as to whether XM-28 stainless would be an acceptable spring wire material in high pressure hydrogen gas?

Does anyone have some suggestions for other available spring materials for this application?

Thank You
 

RE: Spring wire material for use in high pressure hydrogen gas?

Elgiloy?

A PH grade of SS?

RE: Spring wire material for use in high pressure hydrogen gas?

No, don't use PH SS grades.
An alloy that is fully austenitic will be resistant to hydrogen.  Does the N-32 get magnetic when drawn?  I know that you could do it with 21-6-9.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Plymouth Tube

RE: Spring wire material for use in high pressure hydrogen gas?

Are you looking at spring quality versions of Type 304 and 316?  Spring quality Type 304 (ASTM A 313 or equivalent) will have ~ 10% lower strength than Type 631 (17-7 PH) for a given wire size, which is similar to XM-28 (UNS S24100).  SEI published an excellent article on this subject a few years ago, and developed a new alloy that contains more Mn & N for austenite stabilization, similar to the Nitronic series grades, but I am not sure if they ever commercialized it.  Use the following link for more information:

Development of Highly Hydrogen-resistant Stainless
Steel Spring Wire
http://www.sei.co.jp/tr_e/pdf/industrial/61-09.pdf


 

RE: Spring wire material for use in high pressure hydrogen gas?

Excellent article.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources