A Novel X-ray Diffraction Procedure for Determining Residual Stresses Around Cold Expanded Holes

Abstract

The continued interest in developing more accurate finite element models of the cold expansion process has driven the need for better measurement methodologies. This work details an x-ray diffraction (XRD) procedure explicitly designed to determine the residual stresses around a cold expanded hole. Aluminum coupons from two different alloys (2024-T351 and 7075-T651), with nominally 12-mm-diameter holes, were cold expanded to two different levels of applied expansion and measured using XRD. The results of a limited interlaboratory study highlight the reproducibility that one may expect to achieve by its application. For the majority of data points, the residual stresses characterized at each of the two laboratories were in agreement within the bounds of the residual stress determination experimental uncertainties, which were generally ± 15 MPa or less. After examining the differences between results obtained at each laboratory as a function of radial distance from the hole, it was found that no significant systematic error exists between data sets. Thus, the proposed novel procedure appears to provide a more precise and accurate determination of the residual stresses around cold expanded holes with a significant reduction in measurement uncertainty compared to conventional XRD measurement procedures. The results obtained using this novel procedure will be useful in calibrating new computational material models of the expansion process.