Relaxation of welding residual stresses under fatigue loads

Residual stresses can be produced during manufacturing processes, eg. welding, machining and plastic working, and also in service. It can be superimposed with externally applied loads, so that unexpected deformations and failures of members will be occurred. Especially, the strength and the life of welded components are affected extensively by the residual stresses distributed around their weldments not only under static loads, but also fatigue loads. These residual stresses are not kept constant, but relaxed or redistributed during service. Under static loads the relaxation takes place when the residual stress superimposed with external stress exceeds locally the yield stress of material used. It is shown that under fatigue loads the residual stress is considerably relieved by the first or few cycle loading, and then gradually relaxed with increasing loading cycles. Although many investigations in this field have been carried out, the phenomenon and mechanism of the stress relaxation by mechanical means are still not clear, and there are few comprehensive models for predicting specific effects on the stress relaxation. In this study, the effects of applied static and fatigue loads on the residual stress relaxation were investigated, and a model to predict quantitatively the residual stress relaxation was proposed