Archives of Metallurgy and Materials

Abstract

Conventional shot peening (SP) is cheap surface treatment widely used to enhance fatigue life of mechanical components [3,4]. Basically, it is shooting small particles (shots) on the surface of the sample. However, the process itself is so complex that a lot of companies are not able to optimally employ it due to the amount of parameters that must be controlled all at the same time.The duplex process consists in two stages of shot-peening treatment. The first one consist of shot-peening with spherical cast steel shots or cut wire shots. During the second stage the samples processed in stage one were subject to shot-peening with glass beads.In this work, RSA-501 aluminium alloy was shot peened using shots of different material and diameter and tested using a measurement of residual stresses and surface roughness. Tests and studies conducted so far on RSA-501 aluminium alloy demonstrate that bombardment by a treatment medium in the form of glass beads or shots of various shapes and diameters induces permanent plastic deformation of the surface layer. The roughness achieved after the shot-peening process was determined for each treatment medium. The largest value of Ra parameter was achieved for cut wire shots and this result is consistent with the above-mentioned theoretical knowledge. This medium is the most aggressive one to the surface being treated primarily due to the sharp edges of shots. The duplex process was successful in obtaining higher values of compressive stresses in surface layer than values achievable in conventional single-stage shot peening process.