IIW History 1948-1958

COMMISSION X

RESJDUAL STRESSES AND STRESS RELIEVING

R. WECK U nited Kingdom .

r. CONSTITUTION AND TERMS OF REFERENCE. At the inaugural meeting of the Governing Council of the II\iV in Brussels in 1948, two Commissions were set up to deal with the problem of residual stresses: one under the chairmanship of Professor W. SoETE (Belgium) was charged with the investigation of various methods of stress relieving and their efficacy - this was originally Commission XI; the other under the chairmanship of Dr. R. \ iVECK (United Kingdom), was to study the problem of the effect of residual stresses on service behaviour of welded structures . The first meetings of the full Commissions were held in the following year in Delft, when it became apparent that the closest liaison would have to be main– t ained between the work of the hvo Commissions, since in many respects they ,,·ere treating identical problems from somewhat differing points of vievv. Not only the two chairmen, but also most of the other members of the Commissions, endeavoured to attend the meetings of both so that in fact the two Commissions quite naturally began to function as one, and at the next Annual Assembly in Paris the two Commissions were amalgamated under the chairmanship of Dr. R. 'NECK, with Professor SoETE as vice-chairman. Each of the participating countries was invited to nominate tvvo delegates to the Commission, an arrange– ment of which most of them took advant age. Whilst the personnel of Com– missions inevitably changes from one Annual Assembly to another, the Com– mission has been fortunate in maintaining a solid core of members \Yho have attended the annual meetings every year. 2 . ORGANISATION. The Commission has always functioned as one body and has avoided the setting up of sub-commissions, though some occasional working groups consisting