Experimental and theoretical studies of the influence of a tensile load on the relaxation of residual stresses in a hardened cylindrical specimen under creep conditions

This paper presents an experimental and theoretical study of the influence of a tensile load on the relaxation of residual stresses in a hardened cylindrical specimen of ZhS6KP alloy under creep conditions at 800$^\circ$C. An experimental study was conducted to investigate the distribution of the axial residual stress tensor component across the thickness of the hardened layer after hardening by air shot blasting using microbeads and after creep loading for 50 and 200 h under a tensile load of 150 and 250 MPa. A detailed theoretical analysis of the problem was performed. In all loading regimes, the calculated and experimental values of the residual stresses were found to be in good agreement. It was shown that at low tensile load, the relaxation rate decreased in comparison with the case of thermal exposure in the absence of a tensile load and, with increasing load intensity, it increased.