Modeling residual stress for the design and performance assessment of metallic aircraft components

The aircraft industry is increasingly using additive manufacturing, which results in high levels of residual stress. This stress is generally considered undesirable. However, residual stresses can be intentionally induced to improve material utilization. This enables lightweight structures. Furthermore, demonstrating compliance through simulation is becoming a more prevalent way to cut costs and gain insights that would otherwise be impossible.\\ All existing residual stress field modeling approaches are based on process simulations. To avoid the time-consuming nature of this work, a modeling approach is presented that allows users to define stress states comprising a residual stress field. This approach enables the direct definition of residual stress fields instead of predicting them. A simulation model illustrates how to apply an artificially derived residual stress field.