FEASIBILITY OF DRY RING CORE TECHNIQUE FOR DETERMINING

DEEP SURFACE WELDING RESIDUAL STRESSES

M. M. Mahapatra & Kamal Sharma
ABSTRACT
Over the years, several destructive and semi-destructive techniques have been in use for
experimental determination of welding residual stress. While the popular blind hole drilling
technique is dependable, it cannot be used for deep subsurface determination of residual stress.
Ring-core method of measuring residual stress is one such technique which can be utilized to
measure deep sub-surface residual stress but requires extreme precautions and expensive
equipments such as electro discharge machine (EDM) to trepan the hole around the strain gauge.
In the present study, a feasibility study on the use of general purpose vertical milling machine
with modification, specially designed tree-panning tools for the purpose of measuring residual
stress with ring core technique has been discussed. Thick plates were welded with GMAW
process and initially the surface residual stress was measured with blind hole drilling technique.
Dry ring-core technique was then used for calculating the residual stress and the results were
compared with the measured residual stress by blind hole drilling technique at the surface. The
residual stress results calculated from the dry ring-core technique appear to be encouraging. The
most important advantage of ring coring technique is capability of measuring stress profiles up to
5 mm depth. In this study a depth of 7 mm was aimed and residual stress values were recorded.
The developed dry ring core method holds promise of avoiding cumbersome EDM process to
measure deep sub-surface residual stress.
KEYWORDS: Dry ring core method, Incremental strain method, Residual stress, Strain compliance

function. Hole drilling method.

1. Introduction
Residual stresses may have harmful effects on structural integrity and are vital
considerations regarding failure assessment of structures. Though the adverse effects are
particularly apparent in welded joints but the residual stresses are introduced to varying degrees
by various manufacturing processes. Hence, determination of residual stresses becomes more
essential in structural components for estimation of their residual service life. In this article the
procedure of residual stress measurement using Dry Ring Core method, which is a destructive
experimental approach in measuring direction and magnitude of mainly homogenous type of
residual stresses, has been described along with its theoretical background. Incremental Strain
Method (ISM) was used to calculate the strain compliance functions K1 and K2 which is needed
to calculate the residual stress values. Hole drilling method is widely accepted and used for
measuring residual stresses but it is not enough sensitive with varying depths to produce
adequate accuracy of residual stresses. This is the reason behind the implication Ring core
technique [1, 2, 3, 4]. A practical application has been conducted on a weldment of stainless steel
plate and residual stresses have been compared with Blind Hole drilling method.
1

2 Theoretical backgrounds
Like other methods, a theoretical background of incremental strain method defines certain
relations between various parameters, known and unknown in nature. Residual stress can be
determined in major two ways, using incremental strain method or differential method.
2.1 Incremental Strain Method (ISM)
In Dry Ring Coring technique the trepanning is done in the surface of the component using
vertical milling machine [1]. This method approaches with the relaxation effects in the core
made by trepanning to measure the macroscopic natural residual stresses present in surface and
sub surface layers. Three element strain gauge rosettes are fixed on the top of the surface of the
core to measure the relived strains a, b and c in common known a, b, and c direction. Relieved
general strains a, b and c are measured every i-th step of drilled depth zi and size of steps
difference z is always referred to the previous steps size (zi1). Then the derivative of those
measured strains with respect to depth z is used for calculation using strain compliance
functions K1 and K2. These strain compliance functions are derived for uniaxial stress, can be
found out by means of experimental procedures or by finite element simulation. Eq. 2. to 4 are
used to measure residual stresses in a, b, and c directions and then principal stresses and their
directions are obtained using Eq. 5 [2-4].

4
,

2.2 Comparison between the ring-core method and the hole-drilling method
Ring core method is basically used to measure macroscopic residual stress. Hole drilling
method is much more commonly used technique than ring core. Ring core method is much more
destructive comparing with hole drilling method, and much more complex too. Both of the
methods have huge similarities between them as they share same kind of mathematical equations
to calculate the residual stresses but ring coring technique depends upon entirely different
calibration coefficients. Using ring coring technique gives much higher strain relaxation
compared to hole drilling, so it is much more sensitive in measuring relaxed strains by which
influential errors can be minimized during acquisition stage of testing. The eccentricity errors of
core strain gauge rosettes have a tendency to compensate each other, so the influence of the
2

errors due to eccentricity is much lower in case of ring coring technique. The most important
advantage of ring coring technique is capability of measuring stress profiles up to 5 mm depth
[2-3] and in this investigation residual stress has been measured up to a depth of 7 mm. Ring
coring technique is much more time consuming and destructive than hole drilling method [2-4].
3. Relaxation coefficient derivation using FEA
With the help of finite element simulation the exact and accurate values of strains during a
ring core operation can be found out. To simulate the real experiment and its nature, it is the best
way of the solution. ANSYS software (Fig.1) has been used [5-7] to simulate the operation and
accordingly in this report the calibration coefficients K1 and K2 has been chosen for the best
approximate result to be calculated [5-7].

Fig. 1. FEA simulation of trepan hole for calibration coefficient K1 and K2 [5-7]
3.1 Relaxation functions K1 and K2 at varying (do/di) ratios at depths
From the values of K1 and K2 were found out for different tool geometries for depth of 7
mm (do/di) using below mentioned equations predicted by statistical correlation [5-7]. The
regression Eq. 6. & 7 are shown for the prediction of the compliance functions K1 and K2.
K1= 0.987 - 1.19 do/di

...10

K2= 5.92 - 5.47 do/di

...11

In our experimentation we have chosen tool geometry having outer diameter (do) 30 mm and
inner diameter (di) 22 mm. Relaxation coefficients K1 and K2 have been found out using the
above mentioned equations.
4. Experimental development
Stainless steel 304L was used as the material of the plate having dimensions 310 X 250 X
25 (mm). ER308L Stainless welding wire (1.2 mm diameter) was used as the electrode or filler
material during welding by GMAW process [8-9]. Typical wire chemistry: C/0.019, Si/0.46,
Mn/1.72, Ni/10.10, Cr20.80. Standard conventional V type groove design was chosen for weld.
Butt welding was performed in horizontal position keeping the plate fixed on the work bench and
moving the torch in a constant speed along the weld line for each pass. The weld joints were
prepared by autogenously GTAW root pass. Torch having gas nozzle of 7 mm diameter and
3

tungsten electrode of 3.2 mm diameter with shielding of argon gas having flow rate of 13 L/min
was used in welding. After root pass rest welding has been done by GMAW procedure. The plate
took 8 weld passes to get joined. The parameters of the process are as below Table 1. The
composition of base material and wire electrode is stated in Table 2.
Table: 1. Welding process parameters
Root pass
Weld pass

Current (amp)
180
182-200

Voltage
20
24-27

Speed (cm/min)
18
18-25

Gas flow (L/min)

13
15

Table: 2. Composition of base material

Base material
304L
Filler wire
ER308L

C
0.03
.019

Si
2
.46

Cr
17-21
20.8

Ni
8-12
10.1

Mo
-

Mn
1.72

Fe
Bal
Bal

Fig. 2. Designed and manufactured hollow adapter for dry ring core

Fig. 3. Designed and manufactured hollow multipoint trepan cutting tool for dry ring core

Fig. 4. Designed and manufactured hollow single point trepan cutting tool for dry ring core
Instead of EDM, vertical milling machine was used for trepanning. For this the axis in
which the tool would be rotating should be hollow as all connections from the strain gauge
would go through the hole. So it was needed to design a new milling adaptor for the vertical
milling machine which is hollow from the inside and accommodate the trepanning tool. The
photograph of hollow milling adaptor specifically designed for the present investigation is shown
in Fig. 2. The trepan tools were also designed. The first set of tools were designed with multi
cutting points as shown in Fig. 3. However, excessive heat was generated during the use of
multipoint trepan tool which damaged the strain gauge rosette. Hence a single point tool was
designed to reduce the cutting temperature as shown in Fig. 4. The cutting temperature was kept
under control by applying coolant at the outer periphery of the tool. The milling single point
cutting tool was aligned axially with the strain gauge rosette and colored wires were taken out
through the hollow adaptor. To ensure that those wires wont get affected while tool rotation,
those wires were taken out through a pipe for shielding which was inserted through the hollow
adaptor. Using the milling cutter the core was trepanned in a series of increments. After the
process was completed, further measurements were made to check the depth of cut and
alignment to strain gauge, and adjustments to ensure the analysis procedure was appropriate.
Blind hole drill technique was also performed to compare the results achieved by the proposed
method. The dry ring core process is shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. (a) Strain gauge rosette attached to the surface, (b) Necessary connections made, (c)
Groove after trepanning

5. RESULTS & DISCUSSION

Using above described dry Ring core technique we have calculated residual stresses in the
longitudinal and transverse directions of the weld axis, up to 2mm in depth. Blind Hole drilling
technique was also carried out up to 2 mm depth to compare the results [10]. Magnitude of the
residual stresses in longitudinal direction has been plotted in below Fig. 6 for both of the
methods up to 2 mm depth.

Fig. 6. Comparison of residual longitudinal residual stresses (BHD: blind hole drilling
method)

Fig. 7. Measurement of longitudinal residual stresses up to 7 mm depth by ringcore

method
6. CONCLUSIONS
The tool geometry taken as the ratio (do/di) of outer and inner diameter of the trepanned
section affects the compliance functions K1 and K2. It was seen that for every single tool
geometry the values of compliance functions changed varying with depth. Ring core method
needs study in detailing to conduct the experimental procedure and to understand the theoretical
portion of this method. The effects of different chosen parameters, e.g. Tool radius, depth on the
calculated calibration coefficients should be thoroughly investigated. The preliminary
investigation established the feasibility of dry ring core method where use of EDM can be

avoided. Further, a portable setup can be developed for dry ring core method based residual
stress measurement for field welding application.
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