The predecessor of this manual was published in 1960 as SAE TR-182 (SAE J784) and was intended to bring together the most recent developments in x-ray techniques for residual stress measurements. At that time@ it was evident that the ability to reproduce results among different laboratories was lacking. In addition@ the disadvantages of film techniques@ particularly with regard to hard steels@ had been given much attention. Consequently@ the original manual covered almost exclusively diffractometer methods and recommended a fairly uniform technique based on two exposures and peak position determination by a three-point parabola.