The Benefits of Residual Stress Measurement

Measuring residual stress can provide numerous benefits:

• Optimize processes, such as measuring the effectiveness of peening on a part at critical locations
• Provide a quantitative metric to aid in making specifications and go/no-go decisions
• Improve product quality, substantiate supplier quality, gain engineering source approval (ESA)
• Ensure safety and reduce catastrophic failures
• Extend component or structure life by ensuring sufficient compressive residual stress is present
• Validate that repair area has been “restored” to original specifications
• Achieve more accurate replacement requirements by tracking residual stress degradation
• Improve the probability of detection of other non-destructive techniques
• Validate residual stress distribution from FE models and/or fracture mechanics

Residual Stress Management

Harmful residual stress can lead to stress corrosion cracking, distortion, fatigue cracking, premature failures in components, and instances of over-design. Techniques such as heat treating, controlled cooling, and localized heating can be applied to help manage potentially harmful residual stresses that were introduced during manufacturing. Other techniques, such as shot peening, are used to introduce beneficial residual stresses into a component to help increase fatigue life. Analyzing the residual stress state of a component will ensure that these processes were successful. Even small changes in residual stress can have a significant effect on the life of a component, which is why residual stress is so important to monitor.