Residual stress in 7449 aluminium alloy forgings

The through thickness residual stress distributions within three 120 mm thick rectilinear forgings, made from the high strength aluminium alloy 7449 have been measured using both neutron diffraction and deep hole drilling. Neutron diffraction measurements were made on two instruments, one using a pulsed spallation neutron source, the other a steady state reactor source. Heat treatment of the forgings included a rapid quench into cold water and it was the residual stresses arising from this step that were initially measured. Neutron diffraction measurements indicated large magnitude (>250 MPa) tensile residual stresses in the centre of an as quenched forging, balanced by surface regions stressed in compression (<-200 MPa). Sufficient measurements were made to permit the description of the residual stress distribution using area maps. Two forgings were stress relieved by cold compression immediately after quenching. The degree of plastic strain was either 2.5% or 4%, and was applied by a single application of force in the short transverse direction. Cold compressed forgings were found to have far lower residual stress when compared to the as quenched condition. The amount of cold compression was found to cause an insignificant difference in the final residual stress distribution. The neutron diffraction results are compared to measurements made by deep hole drilling and a new incremental variation of the technique. The deep hole was drilled through the centre of the forgings in the short transverse direction. Multiple neutron diffraction measurements were also made on the extracted cores from the deep hole measurements to assess the variation of the unstrained lattice parameter through the thickness of the forgings.