Residual Stress Measurement in Spot Welds and the Effect of Fatigue Loading on Redistribution of Stresses Using High Sensitivity Moire´ Interferometry

Residual stress distribution has been determined in spot welds, which are generally used to join mild steel sheets. Various spot weld configurations were investigated using the full-field, experimental, optical technique of high sensitivity moire´ interferometry. These stresses were found to be in the range 250–300 MPa (tensile) in the center and decreased to 40–100 MPa (tensile) at the edge of the weld nugget. Low cycle fatigue loading of the spot weld caused the residual stress to drop in the weld center by about 30 percent and increase at the edges by as much as 100 percent.