An indentation based technique to detect residual stress profiles in manufactured components

A novel identification method is introduced in this paper as an effective tool for detecting the profile of residual stresses induced into engineering components by surface treatments. The proposed procedure is based on the indentation test performed at different penetration depths, possibly in the same material point, supplemented by the numerical simulation of the experiment and by a suitable definition of a discrepancy norm to be minimized. In view of the intended practical and repetitive industrial use of this identification methodology, the computational burden associated with the proposed combined experimental-numerical procedure has been significantly reduced by the implementation of interpolation techniques based on proper orthogonal decomposition and radial basis function, thus improving effectiveness and reducing costs. The reliability and the robustness of the method has been checked first on the basis of some pseudo-experimental computer generated data and has been finally verified against some available truly experimental information.