Cold drawn wires of eutectoid pearlitic steel are widely used for prestressing concrete
structures that usually work in harsh environments, so that stress corrosion cracking of
prestressing steel is a problem of major technological concern. In this paper a previous
model developed by the authors is applied to analyse the influence of the residual stress-
and-strain profiles after cold drawing on the hydrogen embrittlement susceptibility of
prestressing steel wires. Numerical results show the relevant role of both residual stress and …

Hydrogen embrittlement (HE) plays a relevant role in the performance of prestressing steel
wires. In this framework, the knowledge of residual stresses and plastic strains in wires due
to cold-drawing (manufacturing-induced residual stresses), as well as of wires
hydrogenation from harsh environments are the keys to successful predictions of wire lives.
This paper advances previous analyses of HE in cold-drawn prestressing wires via
numerical modelling, first, of the cold-drawing process to gain the distributions of residual …