Abstract
Keynote presentation: Subsea infrastructure for natural gas transport in the North Sea is exposed to hydrogen from the outside due to cathodic protection (CP). Challenges related to hydrogen embrittlement due to hydrogen from CP has been addressed and largely contained through research collaboration with industry and governmentally funded research. When repurposing natural gas subsea pipelines for hydrogen gas transport, additional research effort is needed to ensure the integrity of the pipelines exposed to pressurized H2-gas on the inside.
For the last six years SINTEF have been and are running several research projects addressing different aspects of structural and materials integrity in offshore pipeline transport of hydrogen gas, and this presentation will give an overview of on-going research including some recent results.
Topics included are hydrogen uptake and diffusion, fatigue, fracture toughness, micro-mechanisms and numerical modelling of fracture. Recent results related to hydrogen diffusion and structural integrity in clad pipelines, influence on surface oxides on hydrogen diffusion as well as nano and micro-scale effects in multi-scale in-situ mechanical testing will be presented. The presentation especially focuses on existing knowledge gaps related to safe design of hydrogen transport pipelines