Material fabrication processes like forging, rolling, extrusion, quenching, additive manufacturing, machining, and welding lock spatially varying residual stress fields into structural materials. These residual stresses can influence the way that materials perform (e.g., fatigue, fracture, distortion, and corrosion). Hill Engineering has developed expertise to support many different types of residual stress analysis, which we apply to help our customers manage residual stresses effectively in design. The following are some examples of residual stress analysis.
Tensile residual stress will reduce overall fatigue performance (i.e., it will take less time to develop fatigue cracks and those fatigue cracks will grow faster relative to what would occur in the absence of residual stress). Fatigue design accounts for residual stress as a mean stress effect.
Compressive residual stresses can be used to improve fatigue performance. To take advantage of this benefit surface enhancement processes like cold working of fastener holes, shot peening, and laser peening are applied in fatigue critical areas. Residual stress analysis tools can be applied to predict the effects of these surface treatments on fatigue performance.
Residual stresses can have a significant impact on the distortion of parts during machining and during service. Finite element modeling is an effective tool for performing residual stress analysis of machining processes.
High quality residual stress measurements are very helpful in terms of determining the inputs to a residual stress analysis. Take a look at some example residual stress measurements elsewhere on our website.
Please contact us for more information.