High resolution near-surface stress determination using synchrotron X-rays

Synchrotron X-ray methods are particularly well suited to the investigation of residual stresses in the near-surface regions of engineered components. High intensity and low divergence allows small gauge volumes to be defined in order to study stress fields existing over a range of several hundred microns. It is however necessary to develop techniques to overcome the elongation of the gauge volume resulting from high energy X-rays. It is shown that high resolution residual stress information can be obtained from a surface treated specimen in both the normal and in-plane directions.