Book excerpt: The relevance of residual stresses in engineering components is being increasingly appreciated by modern engineers concerned with design and performance. The non-destructive evaluation of such stresses has provided a challenge which has been addressed by the use of X-ray diffraction to characterize near-surface stresses. The extension of diffraction stress measurements to include neutron diffraction represents a major advance. Use of the penetrating power of neutrons is ideally suited to the determination of macrostress variation through thick components and of microstresses in composites and multiphase alloys. This collection of papers on the subject is the first of its kind and represents a definitive summary of the field. With contributions by most of the world's experts, it gives a comprehensive treatment of the theory, practice and problems in the measurement of residual stresses using neutrons, with references to virtually all work currently in print. It provides state-of-the-art information about the uses and limitations of the method, with numerous examples. It is appropriate both for those currently using X-ray methods, and f