The residual stress is inevitably introduced into composites because of the mismatch of the coefficient of thermal expansion, and it is different in each phase. The X-ray technique can detect separately the stress in each phase, so will wield useful information for analyzing the toughening mechanisms of composites. In order to apply the law of mixture to alloy steels with composite microstructures, two phase stainless steel, consisted of ferrite (.alpha.-Fe) and austenite (.gamma.-Fe) structures, was selected. The tensile elastic deformation was loaded, and then the X-ray diffraction technique was used to measure the X-ray elastic constants, the X-ray stress constants and the phase stresses. The law of mixture was investigated and the separation of macrostress and microstress was carried out. The phase stresses (the residual stresses of phase) in each phase, which were measured by X-ray technique, was directly proportional to the applied stress. The macrostress calculated from the phase stresses by using the law of mixture was nearly equal to the applied stress.