Effects of finish turning on an austenitic weld investigated using diffraction methods

Arc welding generally introduces undesired local residual stress states on engineering components hindering high-quality performance in service. Common procedures to reduce the tensile residual stresses are post-heat treatments or mechanical surface treatments like hammering or shot-peening. Assessments of residual stress profiles of post-weld treatments underneath the weld surface are essential, especially in high safety exigency systems like pressure vessels or piping at power plants. In this study, neutron diffraction is used to determine the stress profile after finish milling of an austenitic steel weld in order to verify a chained finite element simulation predicting the final residual stress fields including milling and welding contributions. Non-destructive measurements with spatial resolutions of less than 0.2 mm within the first 1 mm from the surface were mandatory to confirm the finite element simulations of the coarse-grained austenitic material. In the data analysis procedure, the obtained near-surface data have been corrected for spurious strain effects whenever the gauge volume was partially immersed in the sample. Moreover, constraining the surface data to values obtained by x-ray diffraction and data deconvolution within the gauge volume enabled access of the steep residual stress profile within the first 1 mm.