Residual Stress Production Quality Control

Aircraft engine and structural components are being produced from forgings with increasingly complex geometries in a wide range of aerospace alloys. The forging process involves a number of steps required to attain favorable material properties (e.g., heat treatment, rapid quench, cold work stress relieving, and artificial aging). These processing steps, however, also result in the introduction of residual stress. Excessive bulk residual stresses can have negative consequences including: part distortion during machining and/or during service, reduced crack initiation life, increased crack growth rates, and an overall reduction in part life. This presentation will describe an approach for quality management of residual stresses in aerospace forgings. The quality management system relies upon computational process modeling, residual stress measurement, and the integration of these concepts within the framework of a standard production quality system.