Influence of the skin effect of plastic deformation on hydrogen accumulation in metals

The paper is concerned with the skin effect of plastic deformation, which was discovered circa ninety years ago. The study is carried out with the help of the hydrogen diagnostics. Accumulation of hydrogen is shown to occur due to the dissociation of atmospheric moisture under the process of plastic deformation of metals in a thin surface layer comparable to the grain size. Hydrogen is accumulated in pores and microcracks, whose volume in the surface layer increases hundred-fold. The zones of localization of plastic deformation coincide with the local surface zones of hydrogen storage. The obtained experimental data lead to the conclusion that the surface layer cannot be considered as a continuous medium.