[en] Typical aero engine alloys, such as IN718, can be surface-treated by shot peening to induce near-surface compressive strains. To calculate the remaining operation time for those critical aero engine components, a quantitative nondestructive determination of near-surface strain gradients has to be developed. We have demonstrated in the past, that it is possible to obtain a characteristic depth profile (surface and sub-surface) of the electrical conductivity of shot peened specimen by using high-frequency eddy current techniques. The measured conductivity profile is resulting from residual stresses, cold work, surface roughness, and the microstructure of the material. The objective is to measure residual stresses (separately from other material properties) in such components after a defined life time. It can be assumed, that surface roughness and microstructure remain unchanged in IN718 materials over their lifetime, but cold work and residual stresses can change independently. Consequently, there is a need to clearly separate the information from both material properties of received eddy current conductivity signals in order to obtain specific information related to residual stresses. This paper presents results acquired from different experiments, conducted to separate both effects by using the eddy current technique on shot peened IN718 materials. We present different physical approaches and illustrate the experiments to solve them. In addition, we will demonstrate that there is a need to use additional techniques, for example ultrasonic time-of-flight measurements, to separate the effects of residual stresses from compound (mixed) signals obtained on cold work samples.