Validation of the Incremental Step Loading Technique Application to Small Punch Tests in Aggressive Environments in X80 Steel

The Small punch test, which consists on punching a small plane specimen up to failure, is a technique to be taken into account for the estimation of mechanical properties when there is shortage of material. In recent works it has been applied to the estimation of mechanical properties steels in aggressive environments. In aggressive environments, tests under a constant load are usually employed for the threshold stress determination, but this a slow and sometimes inaccurate technique. The standard ASTM F1624 solves these issues; it consists on applying steps of constant loads subsequently increased up to the specimen’s failure. In a previous work, it was indicated how to implement this technique for Small Punch testing of steels in hydrogen embrittlement scenarios, adapting the steps duration. This proposal allows to obtain a threshold load by using at least 3 specimens in a total time of around a week. In the present work, the incremental step loading technique from ASTM F1624 standard is applied to the Small Punch test in order to estimate tensile threshold stress of a X80 high strength steel in hydrogen embrittlement environments by cathodic polarization in an acid electrolyte. Regular standard tests on cylindrical tensile specimens were carried out following the ASTM F1624 standard, in order to validate the methodology proposed.