A review of the published literature on the mechanisms responsible for the generation of residual stress is presented, along with an up-to-date state-of-the-art summary of the methods utilized for the measurement of the distribution and magnitude of residual stresses in welded components.These presentations are followed by the results obtained from experiments designed to provide the definitive information necessary to compare the results of the three most common techniques applied to weldments.In these investigations residual stress distributions were determined for as-welded and stress relieved disks of Inconel 600, Inconel X-750, and Rene 41.The primary method used to determine the residual stress distributions was the Sachs boring-out technique.However, for Inconel 600 the magnitude and distribution of the residual stresses were determined by two additional techniques: (1) the hole-drilling method and (2) the plugging-out method.