Experimental Measurement and Numerical prediction of Residual Stresses Using Contour Method in a Quenched Cylinder

Residual stresses have an important role in many failure processes such as fatigue, fracture, buckling and crack propagation. Residual stress measurement techniques are categorized as destructive, semidestructive and non-destructive techniques. Contour Method is a destructive technique that can measure two dimensional residual stresses. In this technique, the component is cut in half using Electro-Discharge Machining (EDM) procedure. The contours of the new surfaces created by the cut are then measured. Finally, the measurement data are used to calculate the residual stresses. In the current work, a cylinder made of 316L steel was water quenched to create a well-known stress field. The cylinder was then cut in half using the EDM technique. The surface contours created by stress relaxation following cutting was then measured using the CMM process. The experimentally measured residual stresses indicated a very good agreement with those predicted using finite element analysis.