Determination of surface residual stresses in carburised AISI 8620 steel by the magnetic Barkhausen noise method

Abstract

Management of the residual stress state is vital for the design and production stages of carburised components in order to satisfy the technical requirements related to performance, fatigue behaviour and useful lifetime. This enforces the use of practical, reliable and time- and cost-effective stress measurement methods by manufacturers. This study aims to investigate the efficiency of the magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) method in rapid non-destructive determination of surface residual stresses in carburised steels. A series of AISI 8620 steel specimens with different residual stress states was prepared by altering the carburising and subsequent tempering parameters. The specimens were characterised through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigations and hardness measurements, and the surface residual stresses were determined using both the MBN and X-ray diffraction (XRD) methods. The results show that a good correlation exists between surface residual stress and the parameters derived from the MBN signals.