Abstract
The present work aims to simulate the hydrogen-assisted bubble growth process in iron, which is the precursor phenomena of material blistering. Three growth mechanisms are accounted for: growth by external mechanical loading, by internal pressure, and by monovacancy absorption. The model is implemented in the Finite Element software Abaqus. The results show that the absorption of monovacancy has a rather minimal effect on the overall bubble growth at low temperature. However, both external mechanical loading and the internal pressure induced by trapped hydrogen do have a significant effect on the increase bubble size. Moreover, the presence of hydrogen clearly enhances the bubble growth process, even in absence of mechanical loading.