I'll be the first with a sensible reply as it was in the context of my thread.


Destressing the block as ive done it is simply a case of removing any sharp edges.

Stress is passed along the block during use, and can build up anywhere there is a sharp edge and increase the risk of a failure occuring.

By removing sharp edges you stop stress building up at a point.



I did a demonstration of this once but sadly have since lost the media to go with it.


Basically i got some fairly brittle metal rods and decided to test the theory.



I bent two and measured the force to cause them to break, was more or less the same for both, this was a control for the experiment and i did two to rule out them being all greatly different.


I put a sharp shallow cut into one rod.

I put the same sharp shallow cut into the last rod, i then dressed it out with a file, this meant it was a deeper cut now (ie the rod was thinner at its thinnest point) but it had no sharp edge to it.


I then measured the force on them.

The one with the destressed cut failed a little sooner than the 2 control rods, the one with the sharp cut fail at about half the pressure!