Ultrasonic Correction Measurement for Residual Stress in 5083 Aluminum Alloy Welded Component of High-Speed Train

Abstract

The measurement and control of residual stresses are crucial to the structural safety of high-speed trains. The critical refraction longitudinal wave method is extensively employed for the residual stress measurement, and the correction of the influencing factors is the key to the detection accuracy. However, the existing methods mostly give purely mathematical expressions which are only applicable to their studied materials. Hence, this paper proposes the specific influence factor correction method to enhance the applicability and accuracy, and the 5083 aluminum alloy welded component is utilized for testing. Subsequently, the stress coefficient K and the compensation acoustic time under the influence of internal factors are obtained by employing the proposed method, combined with the simulation to determine the focused detection zone, the hole-drilling and X-ray methods are utilized for comparisons, and the results indicate that the test data have a good coincidence. Meanwhile, the detection errors of each zone before and after the correction are analyzed. Moreover, combined with the experimental verification, it is found that the penetration depth of a critical refraction longitudinal wave approaches its one wavelength; the corresponding study is conducted with this characteristic and concludes that in the weld zone, the longitudinal residual stresses are mainly concentrated on the surface of the measured material. Finally, the above results indicate that the proposed method can provide more accurate measurements for engineering applications.