Tesis: Universidad de Bochum. Disertación, Marzo 2012.

1. Introduction -- 1.1. Environmental and economic scope -- 1.2. Hydrogen economy -- 1.3. State of the Art -- 1.4. Austenitic stainless steel as a suitable material -- 1.5. Goal of the present work. -- 2. Fundamentals -- 2.1. The hydrogen atom -- 2.2. The hydrogen atom in the iron lattice -- 2.3. Hydrogen embrittlement of austenitic stainless steels -- 2.4. Mechanisms of hydrogen-assisted fracture -- 2.5. Hydrogen entry and solubility -- 2.6. Effect of the microstructure on HEE -- 2.7. Mechanical effects on α’ –martensite transformation. -- 3. Thermodynamic calculations -- 3.2. Kinetic calculations -- 3.3. Materials supply -- 3.4. Chemical composition -- 3.5. Microstructural characterization -- 3.6. Mechanical testing -- 3.7. Ferrite equivalent measurements -- 3.8. Digital microscopy -- 3.9. Calculation of hydrogen diffusion distances -- 3.10. Secondary ion mass spectrometry. -- 4. Results -- 4.1. Materials of reference -- 4.2. Production of tensile specimens -- 4.3. Microstructure -- 4.4. Influence of alloying elements -- 4.5. Basis for alloy development: generation 1 (G1) -- 4.6. Thermodynamic based criterion: generation 2 (G2). -- 5. Discussion -- 5.1. Microstructure of 1.4307 -- 5.2. Surface condition -- 5.3. Mechanical properties -- 5.4. Chemical composition -- 5.5. Alloy development -- 5.6. Cost efficiency and materials selection.