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Hydrogen is considered one of the primary energy carriers of the future due to the growing demand for clean and renewable energy. Consequently, its global consumption is expected to increase significantly, as indicated by available forecasts. During the production, storage, transportation, and utilization of hydrogen, it interacts with a wide range of structural steels. The presence of elevated hydrogen content in steels can lead to changes in a number of their properties. From a practical standpoint, the most critical effect is that it may result in material degradation due to so-called hydrogen embrittlement, potentially causing complete failure of structures, pressure vessels, and similar components. To ensure the long-term reliability and service life of steels operating in hydrogen-containing environments, it is therefore essential to test their resistance to hydrogen embrittlement under various mechanical, thermal, and pressure conditions that accurately simulate real operating environments. The present paper focuses on the application of conventional and unconventional testing methods for evaluating the resistance of structural steels in hydrogen-containing gaseous environments. The test procedures described in the paper can be used for assessment of the resistance to hydrogen embrittlement of materials used in existing gas infrastructure as well as for optimizing the manufacturing processes for components operating in high-pressure hydrogen environments, or their heat treatment, in order to achieve the desired strength properties, which often also yields significant economic benefits.
Keywords: Structural steels, hydrogen embrittlement, mechanical testing methods, fracture mechanics, fractography© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.