Residual-stress distributions produced by strain-gage surface preparation

Abrasion of a metallic surface to improve bonding during strain-gage installation is generally thought to produce negligible effect on the measurement of residual stresses by blind hole drilling. However, residual stresses induced by surface abrasion may affect residual-stress measurements in shallow subsurface layers of residual-stress fields produced by processes such as grinding and shot peening.The residual-stress and cold-work distributions produced by four methods of abrasive surface preparation and etching were studied by X-ray diffraction in fully annealed AISI 1018 steel. The surface residual stresses produced by abrasion ranged from tension to compression with magnitudes as high as 80 percent of the yield strength. Cold work was induced to depths of 20 to 60 m. Etching produced low magnitude surface stresses and negligible cold work.Paper was presented at the 1986 SEM Spring Conference on Experimental Mechanics held in New Orleans, LA on June 8–13.