The effect of vibratory stress relief (VSR) is usually evaluated with the indirect method of ob-serving the change of amplitude frequency response characteristics of structures. A new kind of evaluatingmethod of VSR based on the ultrasonic time-of-arrival method (UTM), which can obtain the residual stressdirectly through measuring the propagation time of ultrasonic wave in the material, is presented. At first, theprinciple of the measuring method of residual stress based on UTM is analyzed. Then the measuring systemof the method is described, which is in virtue of ultrasonic flaw detector and high-sampling-rate digitaloscillograph. And a set of calibration system that contains a piece of standard specimen is also introduced.Experimental results prove the relation between the residual stress and the propagation time of ultrasonic inworkpieces. Finally, the measuring and calibration systems are applied in evaluating the effect of VSR. Thefinal test results show that the method is effective.
