Residual stresses and their evaluation in welds

A short overview has been given on the nature of residual stresses in a weld joint, the types of stress relief techniques that can be used, and the techniques that can be used for the measurement of residual stresses in a weld joint. More emphasis has been given on the X-ray diffraction technique since this is the most important technique available. Extensive coverage has been given on strain gauge techniques which are useful to measure dynamic stresses and for calibration of other techniques. Other important techniques discussed are magnetic Barkhausen noise analysis technique and ultrasonic techniques. The former is cheap and if the effects of microstructural features are properly understood, this technique will prove to be very versatile for ferromagnetic metals and alloys. The latter have strong potentials for determining surface as well as bulk residual stresses and for three dimensional stress analysis. (author). 77 refs., 24 figs., 3 appendixes