Increased component safety through improved methods for residual stress analysis. Subprojects. Consideration of the elastic-plastic material properties (phase 1). Final report

Residual stresses in mechanical components can result in both detrimental but also beneficial effects on the strength and lifetime of the components. The most detailed knowledge of the residual stress state is of advantage or a pre-requisite for the assessment of the component performance. The mechanical methods for residual stress measurement are divided into the groups of non-destructive and destructive methods. Two commonly used mechanical methods for determination of residual stresses are the hole drilling method and the ring core method which can be regarded as semi-destructive methods. In the context of reactor safety research of the German Federal Ministry of Economic and Technology (BMWi) two fundamental and interacting weak points of the hole drilling method as well as of the ring core method, respectively, in order to determine residual stresses are going to be investigated. As a consequence reliability of the methods will be improved in this joint research project. On the one hand there are effects of geometrical boundary conditions of the components and on the other hand there is the influence of plasticity due to notch effects both affecting the released strain field after removing material and after all the calculated residual stresses. The first issue mentioned above is under the responsibility of the Institute of Materials Engineering (Kassel University) and the last one is investigated by Universitaet of Stuttgart-Otto-Graf-Institut - materials testing institute. As a consequence of a successful project the knowledge base will be considerably improved resulting in benefits for various engineering fields. Especially the quantitative consideration of real residual stress states for optimized component designs will be possible and after all the consequences of residual stresses on safety of components which are used in nuclear facilities can be evaluated. The state of art was reground in the first research chapter and the analysed strain gauges where defined. With an extensive finite element analysis the influence of plastic strain ratio at the hole drilling, ring core and three alternative methods was researched. With the findings the differential calculation method was advanced with the method of adaptive calibration functions. The results of this first numerical and theoretical research chapter (phase 1) at the materials testing institute in Stuttgart is documented in this issue.