Prediction of residual stress field on the surface of quenched 7055 aluminium alloy plates

Abstract The effect of width on the surface quenching residual stress distribution in 7055 aluminium alloy plates of different width values was studied. The distribution of quenching residual stresses of the plates were studied by both simulation and experiment. Numerical simulation was carried out by using the Finite Element Method (FEM), and experimental measurements were conducted to verify the simulation work. The results show that the experimental distributions are approximately consistent with the simulation distribution. The stress fluctuations exist in the edge of the plate and the ratio of the fluctuation region decreases as the width increases. Considering the consistency of the centre point stress and actual length of the fluctuation region, we proposed a method to predict the surface residual stresses distribution using two-step data processing, providing a more convenient method for predicting the stress distribution of the plate with a large dimension by the plate with a small width.