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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2011
Since recent years it is well known that under cyclic as well as monotonic loading conditions, traces of water vapor play an important role for crack propagation in Al based alloys [1–5]. In many cases it is often difficult to understand the difference between corrosion induced crack propagation and true hydrogen embrittlement, because the two phenomena lead to the same result,i.e. enhanced crack propagation. In order to study the H-embrittlement in more detail, fatigue crack propagation tests have been undertaken on single crystal Al-Zn-Mg specimens as well as specimens containing a single grain boundary. In both cases it is expected that water vapor makes a contribution to the embrittling process, but the mechanism leading to hydrogen enhanced fatigue crack growth are different. The aim of this paper is to discuss mechanism controlling hydrogen induced fatigue crack propagation in the light of microstructural aspects such as grain boundary structures and precipitation morphology in single crystals.