Influence of residual stress on thermal expansion behavior

We demonstrate that the thermal expansion behavior of a material can be substantially modified by the presence of residual stresses. In the case of a composite tube made of two layers of dissimilar steels, in situ neutron diffraction measurements revealed a significant difference in the coefficients of thermal expansion along the radial and tangential directions. It is shown that the observed difference in thermal expansion is due to the change of residual stresses with temperature. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.