This study analysed the formation mechanism and characterization of the stresses with the common methods. X-ray diffraction method takes the advantage of simplicity and economy,but its penetrating ability is so limitive that it is just able to measure the state of resid-ual stresses at the surfaces of a body.Nentron diffraction method is able to penetrate deeper than X-ray and an internal stress is indeed measured by this approach,while diffraction volumes are required and only bulk average stress are determined.X-ray energy dispersive diffration method, offers both the good penetration and a high spatial resolution to resolve the residual stress gravients. It is the efficient approach.