Residual stress could be induced by machining, grinding, rolling, deep drawing, welding, thermal hardening and shot peening; its quantification allows to prevent fatigue damage and to control material’s durability and safety.
X-Ray Diffraction is the conventional and time proven technique for measuring residual stress. Using the interatomic spacing as the ultimate gage length, the X-Ray technique is ideal for and applicable to crystalline materials, especially for metals, but also for ceramics. It measures the absolute stress without the need of an unstressed calibration sample.