Residual-Stress Characterization by Use of Elastic-Wave-Scattering Measurements

摘要

The presence of a state of residual stress in a material can impair its structural quality by adversely affecting its elastic limit, yield point, etc. In this paper we derive the appropriate equations for the use of elastic waves to probe an inhomogeneous state of residual stress. As in other treatments of ultrasonic residual stress measurement, we start with nonlinear effects and require knowledge of third order elastic constants. Unlike other treatments, which relate these nonlinear effects to small relative changes in propagation speed of an incident wave, we identify these effects as a source of scattering of the incident wave. Like other treatments, one difficulty with ultrasonic residual stress measurements is separating small residual stress effects from other effects. However, we will give an example of at least one class of problems where this separation appears possible using our approach. It is demonstrated that elastic wave propagation in the presence of non-uniform residual stress can be viewed as a scattering problem. One should note that in various limits, such as that of short wavelength, this scattering problem (as well as any other) can be treated by optical methods (ray bendings, diffraction, etc.). The special features of a scattering situation are expected to be important for smaller wavelengths, and therefore their experimental observability is questionable, and can be resolved only by careful and thorough measurements. (ERA citation 08:005853)