Since residual stresses that are often generated in many components and devices by thermal mismatch or thermal/mechanical processing can strongly affect their mechanical performance and reliability, there has been considerable scientific and engineering interest in non-destructively determining the residual stresses in ceramics, glasses and metals. In this regard, recently much effort has been made to develop new methods of residual stress measurement using an instrumented indentation technique (especially nanoindentation). In the present paper, the recently-developed methods are critically reviewed and related issues are discussed in terms of advantages and shortcomings of each method, in order to provide some insight for future research in the field.

Keywords: Residual stress, Instrumented Indentation, Nanoindentation