Determining Residual Stress in Spherical Components : A New Application of the Hole-Drilling Method

The semidestructive hole-drilling technique for measuring in-depth residual stress is well established for plane components. The strain-stress relationship requires calibration coefficients that can be determined either experimentally or numerically. Experimental determination of the calibration coefficient is very costly compared with numerical determination. Also, experimental determination cannot take into account the new stress distribution between two subsequent drillings. This is why the numerical solution was chosen to determine the calibration coefficients for spherical components in this study. We used the technique on a steering joint and compared the residual stress results obtained for a plane and a spherical structure, The error is discussed. This new development is also applicable on a hip prosthesis and other spherical shape components.