Residual stress measurement in cracked components: Capabilities and limitations of the cut compliance method

The cut compliance method is a powerful experimental tool to measure residual stress distributions. Based on fundamental theoretical relations of liner-elastic fracture mechanics, it is particularly well suited to be applied to components that contain cracks, since it delivers not only the residual stress-field but the stress intensity factor due to the latter as well. However, in the presence of cracks, there are special problems to be dealt with: Contact between crack faces due to crack closure, large stress gradients near the crack tip, residual stresses as high as the yield stress, problems of cutting and unsteady heat production. Most of these effects disturb the linearity of the problem, so the basic assumptions of the theory are violated to some degree. Some possibilities of how to deal with these problems are proposed and discussed.