Nondestructive Measurement of Non-Equibiaxial Welding Residual Stresses Using Instrumented Indentation Technique With Knoop Indenter

Welding residual stresses which are generated in almost all welded structures unavoidably can come to be serious cause of fracture and failure of in-service welded structures. Various techniques have been developed to measure and estimate welding residual stresses such as hole-drilling method, saw-cutting method, X-ray/neutron diffraction method and so on. The instrumented indentation technique (IIT) is being attracted to significant alternative as a measurement method of residual stresses because of it’s nondestructive characteristic and usefulness of measurement on local scales. Basic concept of IIT to evaluate residual stresses is to compare two indentation load-depth curves that are measured experimentally between under stress-free state and under stressed state. In case of using Vickers indenter, average surface residual stress can be measured quantitatively from analyzing measured load diffrerence. Each x, y directional residual stresses can be evaluate by using Knoop indenter. Indenting each directions with Knoop indenter, difference load-depth curves are measured under non-equibiaxial stress state. Residual stress directionality can be expressed as the function of the load-difference ratio calculated from the load-depth curves and the conversion factor ratio that is constant regardless of indentation depth. This function was verified with the experimental data and the results of finite element analyses on various biaxial stress states, Knoop indentation model showed good agreement between the experimental data and the simulation results.