The acoustic emission technique is proposed for assessing the irreversible phenomena occurring during hydrogen absorption/desorption cycling in LaNi5. In particular, we have studied, through a parametric analysis of in situ detected signals, the correlation between acoustic emission (AE) parameters and the processes occurring during the activation of an intermetallic compound. Decreases in the number and amplitude of AE signals suggest that pulverization due to hydrogen loading involves progressively smaller volumes of material as the number of cycles increases. This conclusion is confirmed by electron microscopy observations and particle size distribution measurements.
Keywords: acoustic emission; hydrogen-absorbing materials; intermetallics.