
When designing components for which fatigue or stress corrosion cracking is a concern, it’s important to be cognizant of the residual stresses in the component. Understanding residual stress and its sources is important when making decisions about a component’s shape, features, alloy, and fabrication process.
Fatigue and stress corrosion cracking require the presence of tensile stresses on a component. When residual stresses are tensile they add to the applied tensile stress, reducing the life of a component. In fact, components sometimes fail due to stress corrosion cracking when residual stress is the only source of tensile stress.
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