Residual Stress Measurements at Macro- and Micro-Scales Using DIC

The measurement of residual stresses is a very active research area. The most commonly used technique currently is the crack compliance, or slitting, method. This involves the introduction of a slot in a material under stress and measuring the relaxation caused. This application note summarises work carried out by the Mechanical Engineering department, University of Bristol, using Dantecs Q-400 Digital Image correlation (DIC) system. The full field, non-contact technique of DIC can be used to measure the relaxation at both macro- and micro-scales.