Measured Biaxial Residual Stress Maps in a Stainless Steel Weld

Abstract

This paper describes a sequence of residual stress measurements made to determine a twodimensional map of biaxial residual stress in a stainless steel weld. A long stainless steel (316L) plate with an eightpass groove weld (308L filler) was used. The biaxial stress measurements follow a recently developed approach, comprising a combination of contour method and slitting measurements, with a computation to determine the effects of outofplane stress on a thin slice. The measured longitudinal stress is highly tensile in the weldand heataffected zone, with a maximum around 450آ MPa, and compressive stress toward the transverse edges around −250آ MPa. The total transverse stress has a banded profile in the weld with highly tensile stress at the bottom of the plate (y = 0) of 400آ MPa, rapidly changing to compressive stress (at y = 5آ mm) of −200آ MPa, then tensile stress at the weld root (y = 17آ mm) and in the weld around 200آ MPa, followed by compressive stress at the top of the weld at around −150آ MPa. The results of the biaxial map compare well with the results of neutron diffraction measurements and output from a computational weld simulation.