Stress Relieving

Stress relieving is a heat-treating process that reduces or eliminates stresses that may be introduced from such operations as cold working, machining, welding, drawing, heading, and extrusion without resorting to complete annealing or normalizing and without greatly affecting other properties.

Process Characteristics

Relieves stresses without causing significant microstructural changes
Uses lower temperatures than tempering
Is less costly than full annealing
Minimizes warpage
Helps prevent cracking

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Information provided is from Manufacturing Processes Reference Guide by Robert H. Todd, Dell K. Allen, and Leo Alting.--1st ed. Published by Industrial Press Inc., 1994.