Case Studies of Residual Stress in Automotive Powertrain Components

Automotive Powertrain components commonly undergo cold-working processing during their production as well as a variety of operations designed to improve their residual stress state. While these processes can be modeled, performing residual stress measurements can be necessary to provide concrete information on the residual stress state of a given component. This is especially helpful when seeking to increase the fatigue life of a part, while also trying to avoid the introduction of potentially negative characteristics. The use of the x-ray diffraction method can precisely determine the residual stress state of components made out of crystalline or polycrystalline materials. This method can be applied on a wide variety of components and can be collected at various points in a component's lifespan. In this presentation, we will demonstrate several uses of the x-ray diffraction method to measure residual stresses across a variety of automotive powertrain components.