The Effects of Hydrogen in Aluminium and Its Alloys

Interpretation of information from industrial observations on interactions between gases and metals that can influence the quality and yield of manufactured products requires inputs from a wide spectrum of underlying physical science. The purpose of this text is to integrate these mutually supportive aspects relevant to the effects hydrogen on aluminium and its alloys. Industrial interest is driven by economic imperatives to satisfy standards for quality and yield of metallic products. This is especially true of interactions between hydrogen and aluminium alloys that are typically produced for critical applications which are highly sensitive to damage by hydrogen absorbed during manufacture. As quality standards rise ever higher, experience accumulated from observation on metal in production and related experiments on an industrial scale have yielded eegant integrated systems for liquid metal treatment, metal transfer, casting, fabrication and heat-treatment facilities. Theoretical interest is stimulated by the unique charateristics of the hydrogen atom by virtue of its small size and the single electron in the shell conferring on it the facility to form interstitial solutions in metals and to transform between molecules, neutral atoms, anions and protons. These fundamental features explain many practical aspects of its interactions with aluminium and other metals, e.g. the forms in which it exists within metal structures and the reaction kinetics by which it enters the metal from environmental sources.