The performance of sulphide stress cracking tests implies the use of extreme toxic sour gas. To avoid such unsafe circumstances, an alternative test without sour gas was built up. The alternative test involves a constant load test with cathodic sample polarisation during the duration of the experiment at 0.05 A/cm2. As a consequence the steel samples were charged electrochemical with hydrogen. The test solution consists of 5 wt% sodium sulphate and traces of arsenic (III) oxide. The pH value of the solution was adjusted to 1.5 with sulphuric acid. The arsenic oxide acts as a poison like sour gas and was used to inhibit the formation of molecular hydrogen and to enhance the absorption of atomic hydrogen. The main aim of this study was to determine the comparability of the NACE standard tensile test TM0177 with the mentioned alternative test. 8 electric arc welded Materials which differ in their chemical composition, strength and manufacture process were tested at different loads. Furthermore samples were tested under the conditions of the alternative test and NACE standard test without load, to clarify if hydrogen induced cracking can be observed. Also permeation measurements were done to get information about hydrogen diffusion behaviour. Results showed no accordance between NACE standard test and the alternative test, because different failure mechanism occurred.