Measurement, Analysis and Relief of Residual Stress in 6061 Aluminun Alloy Welded Assemblies

The use of damage tolerance analysis in the Aeronautical Industry have been required a most accuracy determination of the applied stress on component and assemblies. To obtain this, beyond the improvement in the stress calculation through finete element analysis, is very important the residual stress determination.

This paper shows the adequacy of the hole drilling method to residual stress measuring in aluminum alloy 6061-T6 welded assemblies. In the component the residual stresses had reached values up to 130 MPa, being function of the fixture restraints during welding process. The heat treatment conditions of the stress relief were not effective into ranges that do not cause deletereous effect in the mechanical properties of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy.