Stress Relief is the heat treatment of a material to reduce residual stress. Stress relieving may be used with a variety of materials including plastics, steels and non-ferrous materials such as copper alloys and aluminum.
In general stress relieving involves heating components to a temperature where the yield strength is sufficiently low, and the residual stresses can redistribute and relieve themselves.
There are several types of stress relief processes such as vacuum stress relief, air stress relief and deep cryogenics.
This page is part of The Encyclopedia of Stresses in Solids