Friction and Wear Behaviour of Stainless Steels in Liquid Hydrogen

摘要

Stainless FeCrNi alloys are the most important group of materials for cryo-engineering because ofthe properties of the austenitic structure. They exhibit high strength and sufficient ductility even atliquid helium temperature of 4.2 K. In superconductivity applications, it is important that thesealloys are not capable of being magnetized. Therefore, in installations and components of lowtemperature engineering, it is necessary that the austenitic structure is kept during the operation.Transformation of the austenitic structure into martensite can be caused by low temperatures,plastic deformation and/or uptake of hydrogen. In low temperature tribosystems the materials areexposed simultaneously to all these conditions.For reliability reasons, it is required to investigate the low temperature stability of the structure andits properties. This is true especially using hydrogen as an energy storage system and as a fuelresp. In equipment of hydrogen technology failures of materials involve risks of public safety.It was the aim of this research to study the behaviour of standard alloys for low temperatureapplications in tribological systems and in liquid hydrogen.