On the role of crystallographic texture in mitigating hydrogen-induced cracking in pipeline steels

Cathodic hydrogen charging was applied to low-carbon pipeline-steel samples produced using different thermomechanical paths. The samples developed similar microstructures but different crystallographic textures and grain-boundary distributions. This made it possible to investigate the resistance to hydrogen-induced cracking (HIC) of steels with strong {1. 1. 1}ND and {1. 1. 2}ND texture fibres, steels with a dominating {0. 0. 1}ND texture fibre, and steels with close-to-random textures; {. hkl}ND representing grain orientations with {. hkl} planes parallel to the steel rolling plane. The results show that strong {1. 1. 1}ND fibre textures produced by warm-rolling schedules significantly increase HIC-resistance of pipeline steels, whereas {0. 0. 1}ND and close-to-random textures make steels HIC-prone.