First off Alan,
"WELDCOME TO THE WORLD'S GREATEST WELDING FORUM of the American Welding Society!" Okay! Now that we got that out of the way... A couple of quick questions...
1.) is this joint going to be part of a production run? Or is it going to be a one off type fabrication? I ask this question because if it's going to be a joint on more than one assembly, then you should consider what type of set up and method of stress relief to use which leads me into asking the following questions...
2.) Have you considered some form of thermal stress relief yet?
3.) Have you ever heard of VSR (Vibratory Stress Relief)?
If you're wondering which form of stress relief is better, I would say it depends on the assembly size as well as other factors also... if you're not familiar with VSR then here's a few links to help you understand how it works and some industry reports on it's use as well as a brief summary comparison of TSR (Thermal Stress Relief) and VSR:
http://www.scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=ajaps.2014.317.324&org=12http://www.vibfem.com.au/resources/stress_relieving/Vibratory_Stress_Relieving_Part_1.pdfhttp://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/41410/1/195.full.pdfhttp://www.stressreliefengr.com/stressreliefvsr.htmlhttp://www.amse.org.cn/fileup/PDF/E20070089.pdfhttp://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/structural-integrity-faqs/faq-is-vibratory-stress-relief-as-effective-as-thermal-stress-relief/Over the years there has been a considerable amount of discussion and debate over the use of VSR, and I thought to include all of the threads in this forum that show VSR being mentioned in one way or another... You know, stir the pot a little.
It should be noted also that VSR has not been accepted by any of the American welding codes such as AWS and ASME so, if this job is to one of the previously mentioned codes then please disregard the alternative to TSR being VSR, unless there has been a change of heart that I'm unaware of... It should also be noted that this form of stress relief has been widely used in Europe for quite some time now and with great success... These are some of the companies below that either manufacture the VSR equipment, or perform contract VSR services for various major corporations in the US and world wide...
http://www.aws.org/cgi-bin/mwf/forum_search.pl?words=VSR&user=&board=0&field=body&min=&max=&order=deschttp://www.distortioncontrol.com/literature/Future%20of%20SR%20Booklet.pdfhttp://www.vsrtechnology.net/vsr-history/http://www.vsrtechnology.net/common-metals/http://www.vsrtechnology.net/vsr-applications/http://www.vsrtechnology.net/vsr-advantages/http://www.vsrtechnology.net/vsr-limitations/http://www.bonal.com/faq/faq.htmlNote: There are Job Stories and reports in a link located in any of the last 5 url's I posted... below is a link to You Tube that shows a video on VSR and there are more video listed on the right of the video playing if you you want to see more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ew3NPijCVYhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibratory_stress_reliefI think this thread in the Practical Machinist web site was interesting to say the least regarding VSR and I couldn't help but laugh at some of the responses:
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/vibratory-stress-relief-does-work-194147/ Make sure to read both pages because they cab be hilarious indeed...
Well, that's about all I can share regarding VSR... Whichever way you decide to go with, all the best to you... Good luck.
Respectfully,
Henry