24/9/2018 VSR Technology | Vibratory Stress Relief Products & ResearchStabilize Metal Parts | Vibratory Stress Relieving History

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VSR GROUP Vibratory Stress Relief Historical Overview

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Rudimentary forms of vibration were used in an attempt to stabilize metal parts almost
Client List two centuries ago. “Hammer relaxation”, the art of stress reduction through the
application of repeated hammer blows to generate high amplitude, gradually decaying
VSR PRODUCTS vibration, is but one example of early efforts at vibration induced metal stabilization.
Other uncontrollable, unpredictable, and too slow efforts to employ vibration included
VSR 8000
the early foundry practice of dropping castings from considerable height into a sand pile,
the “natural aging” or curing process of storing work pieces outdoors for 6 to 18 months to
RESOURCES allow the metal to expand and contract with the daily changes in ambient temperature,
History as well as peening, a process which, although well-accepted as a method to preclude
stress corrosion, is only marginally effective as a method of metal stress relief. Precision component too large for most
Job Stories & Reports
furnaces, this 18 m (≈59.5') milling machine
Technical Library Limitations of Thermal Stress Relief gantry maintains accuracy of ± 0.046 mm
Because of the severe limitations of those unsophisticated forms of applied vibration, (0.0018") in operation, an accuracy measured
TECHNICAL INFO industry increasingly turned to using furnace treatment in an attempt to thermally stress after machining, trial assembly, disassembly,
relieve precision components which had critical dimensional requirements. transport and installation. (Photo courtesy of
Common Metals
INGERSOLL MACHINE TOOLS, Rockford, IL)
Applications For over a century, thermal stress relief was the primary method by which industry tried
to stabilize metal components, regardless of size, configuration, type of metal, or how
Advantages
the metal was formed or joined – if the cost of stress relief could be justified. On
Limitations applications or work pieces that were not cost effective to thermally stress relieve
(furnace treatment cost is proportional to weight), or on those that could only be partially
stress relieved, industry resorted to using the rudimentary methods mentioned earlier.

Included among the many applications for which thermal stress relief was not, and still
is not effective are:

Welded stainless steel components.

Weldments made of lo-carbon, high-strength steel. These types of work pieces suffer a
reduction of strength and toughness in the heat-affected zone of welds, or hydrogen
embrittlement, or both when thermally treated.
Bi-metallic and multi-metallic components.
Work piece configurations with large variations in wall thickness. Weld-repaired hydro-turbine component,
Components that, because of size, could only be thermally stress relieved in sections, known as a Bottom Ring. Built in two halves,
i.e., 1/2 in-the-furnace, 1/2 out-of-the-furnace. The section being treated would be the Ring had suffered cavitation in operation,
cordoned-off from the section not being treated. The result: a Thermal Gradient Zone which was solved by installing a stainless steel
in which there would be a new stress pattern. liner on the inner diameter. Distortion during
Components that required significant stock removal, especially if the work piece both brace removal and machining was reduced
required that the stock removal be performed in an asymmetrical fashion such as on by 85% using the VSR Process. (Photo courtesy
components with a T-slot pattern, or bolster plates. of VOITH SIEMENS, York, PA)

In these types of applications and others, the limitation of thermal treatment (and the
marginal effectiveness of the then available non-thermal treatment methods) mandated
that industry, both equipment manufacturers and end-users, develop a more effective and
practical method to stabilize metal components.

Applied Vibration for Metal Stabilization

From 1920 to 1940 infrared photography experienced significant development, which, by
WWII, resulted in highly improved reconnaissance imagery. Foundries and metal heat-
treating facilities, for example, could be easily identified from aerial photographs. And,
because these industrial processes were key to the Third Reich’s war machinery
industries, these facilities became prime targets for Allied bombing.

By 1943 the severe shortage of large castings forced German heavy industry to turn to  
fabrications, but, without heat treating facilities, they faced the problem of how large
weldments could be stress relieved in preparation for precision machining. The Germans
soon discovered that large fabrications transported by truck or rail from the weld shop to
the machine shop, as compared with those that were welded and machined in the same or
adjacent facilities, displayed superior dimensional stability during machining. As the war
progressed, the Germans made “transport after fabrication” of large precision
components standard procedure. Although manufacturing managers and engineers
weren’t sure why this phenomenon occurred, some believed it was the result of
workpiece flexure, and experimented with methods to generate flexure in a more
predictable and cost effective manner, for example with applied vibration.

Four-thousand miles away, United States manufacturing of war machinery had greatly
increased both the number and size of fabrication facilities, and precision requirements of
the metal working industry. American engineers had also discovered stress relief through
workpiece flexure, and began to actively pursue using applied vibration to excite

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24/9/2018 VSR Technology | Vibratory Stress Relief Products & ResearchStabilize Metal Parts | Vibratory Stress Relieving History | Limitations of T…
workpieces. As related in the 1943 paper by McGoldrick and Saunders, published in the
Journal of American Society of Naval Engineers, Vol. 55, No. 4, pgs. 589-609, [available
from our On-line Library] the US Navy used vibratory stress relief to stabilize a variety of
components, especially large jigs and fixtures used in shipyards.

After WWII, engineers from both sides of the war were frequently co-workers at firms in
the United States, particularly in firms manufacturing paper mill machinery and
components. Often these components were fabricated out of materials that responded
poorly to thermal stress relief (eg, 300 series stainless steel), or were bi-metallic. This
shortcoming of the thermal process was the motivation for developing commercial
equipment specifically designed to perform Vibratory Stress Relief.

One such firm was LODDING ENGINEERING, Auburn, MA (now KADENT WEB SYSTEMS). As
the use of wider paper mill machinery became necessary, LODDING faced the daunting
challenges of machining longer doctor blades and backs with increasingly tighter
dimensional tolerances for these machines. Elementary vibration equipment was
developed which produced results that clearly indicated the potential of vibratory stress
relief. The VSR Technology Group of AIRMATIC INC can directly trace its historic roots,
through several subsequent VSR equipment manufacturers, back to these beginnings.

VSR Technology
284 Three Tun Road Malvern, PA 19355-3981 • USA
Phone: 1-800-332-9770 Fax: 1-888-964-3866 • Email VSR

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