Assessment of residual stress of 7050-T7452 aluminum alloy forging using the contour method

The cold-compression stress relief process has been used to reduce the quench-induced stresses in high-strength aerospace aluminum alloy forgings. However, this method does not completely relieve the stress. Longitudinal residual stresses in 7050-T7452 aluminum alloy forging were measured with contour method. The measuring procedure of the contour method including specimen cutting under clamps with a wire electrical discharge machine, contour measurement of the cut surface with a laser scanner, careful data processing and elastic finite element analysis was introduced in detail. In addition, multiple cuts were used to map cross sectional stress at different cut surfaces. Finally, the longitudinal residual stress throughout the cut plane was mapped, and through thickness longitudinal stress profiles were also analyzed. Investigated results suggest that spatial variation of stress distribution can be attributed to the non-uniform plastic deformation of the cold-compression stress relief process. The overall reduction of peak stress magnitudes is approximately 43-79%.