Machine-learned atomistic simulations reveal the basis of hydrogen-induced crack-plane transition in alpha-Fe

Abstract

Hydrogen-related fracture in body-centered cubic Fe and ferritic steels often appears as transgranular quasi-cleavage rather than purely intergranular failure, especially at low to moderate hydrogen contents. Fractography has suggested that hydrogen may change the dominant cleavage faceting from {100} toward {110}, but atomic-scale evidence for this possible crack-plane transition remains unclear. Here we construct an efficient neural-network potential for α-Fe/H and combine large-scale, three-dimensional molecular dynamics with grand-canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC), allowing the near-tip crack-surface region and crack tip within a defined GCMC domain to exchange hydrogen with a reservoir at fixed chemical potential. A comparison of four crack systems identifies the controlling response: (100)[010], (100)[011], and (110)[001] remain cleavage-dominated, whereas the (110)[1-10] crack changes from dislocation emission in pure Fe to cleavage under hydrogen charging. The energetic origin is twofold. Hydrogen lowers the Griffith cleavage threshold of the {110} cleavage-plane family more strongly than that of {100}, and, for the controlling crack, a Rice-type energetic descriptor indicates that the surface-energy-controlled cleavage resistance decreases faster than the unstable-stacking-fault-controlled emission resistance, consistent with a weakened dislocation-emission shield. These results provide a thermodynamically consistent atomistic basis for a hydrogen-induced transgranular crack-plane transition in Fe.