With the promise of a hydrogen economy being closer to reality than it has even been, there is an important need for the design, development, and deployment of appropriate materials that can support and sustain the promise of a hydrogen-based infrastructure. One of the important scientific challenges associated with developing a hydrogen-compatible infrastructure is an understanding of the fundamentals of hydrogen-induced degradation in materials and developing appropriate hydrogen-resistant materials for storage and transport applications. By developing a computationally driven multi-scale modeling platform that will be informed by, and integrated with, experiments, this Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) project aims to accelerate the pace at which the controlling mechanisms of hydrogen embrittlement are discovered. 

As envisioned by the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), this project will aim to enable the faster development of hydrogen-resistant materials for the energy transportation sector as it transitions from the transport of fossil fuels to hydrogen-based sources. Beyond the field of hydrogen storage and transport, the fundamental insights obtained from this project could also be helpful in designing fatigue- and corrosion-resistant sub-surface steel structures with longer lifetimes, which could enable materials designs for many other industries as well.