Today, due to the advancement of technology and continuous improvement of manufacturing products and greater economic efficiency, new energies are used in production processes. One of these methods for cutting metals is the
arc or plasma cutting process. Identifying residual stress is important for any process in terms of its amount and type (tensile or compressive). Considering the importance of evaluating residual stresses after the plasma cutting process
and given the fact that residual stresses related to the plasma cutting process have yet to be investigated, this issue was investigated in this paper. The effects of parameters of cutting current intensity, i.e., cutting voltage and cutting speed, which are defined in a plasma machine, were investigated in St37 sheets with thicknesses of 5, 8, and 10mm. For this purpose, following the plasma cutting process in stress-relieved samples, the amount and type of residual stresses along the length and depth of the samples were measured by the contour method. Results showed that in the direction of the sample’s length and in the area around plasma cutting, tensile residual stresses, and in the center of the part in the same direction, compressive residual stresses had their highest value. Also, in the direction of the sample’s depth, the type of
residual stresses was compressive. The highest value of compressive residual stress in the depth direction was obtained for samples with a thickness of 5mm and a current intensity of 200 A.