Complementarity of Experimental and Numerical Methods for Determining Residual Stress States

Residual stress states in engineering structures are determined usually by measuring components of stress tensors with depth below the material surface. There are destructive and non-destructive methods to measure strain tensor components and convert them into stress tensor components by a variety of techniques derived from constitutive (material) equations. In this study, four methods for determining the strain tensor components are presented: X-ray Diffraction (XRDM), Magnetic Barkhausen Noise (MBNM), Hole Drilling (HDM), and Cut-and-Section (CSM) methods; the first two are non-destructive, and the third and fourth are semi-destructive and destructive, respectively. A complementarity of the experimental and two numerical methods such as Boundary Element Method and Finite Element Method is explained. An application of the experimental and numerical methods to measure residual stress states in an industrial component, an L-shaped part of a supporting column in a high voltage structure, is presented.