Residual stress measurement of a 316l stainless steel bead-on-plate specimen utilising the contour method.

This paper describes the mapping of transverse residual stresses within a single bead-on-plate round robin test specimen. The purpose of these measurements was to quantify the magnitude and shape of the residual stress field arising from a single weld bead laid down on an austenitic stainless steel plate. Measurements were made through the thickness of the specimen using the contour method. The contour method is a new destructive, stress relaxation method allowing the full field residual stress to be measured. Results from these measurements show transverse tensile residual stresses over 150 MPa below the plate surface along the length of the weld bead with peak stresses of up to 210 MPa close to the weld stop position. Finally, as these measurements are insensitive to local microstructure variations within the specimen (i.e. texture or variations in lattice parameter), they are useful in helping to validate diffraction based residual stress measurements made within this round robin measurement program. © 2009, Elsevier Ltd