Shot-Peening Sensitivity of Aerospace Materials

The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Command AMRDEC, Aviation Engineering Division in Huntsville, AL requested that the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Weapons and Materials Research Directorate at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD develop and execute a program aimed at evaluating the shot-peening sensitivity of several aerospace materials. The materials represent the four most common metals utilized on U.S. Army aviation shot-peened components. The study had three main thrusts to assess the variation in shot-peening intensity expected from variation shot-peening parameters, to assess the fatigue strength yielded at prescribed shot-peening intensities, and to correlate surface roughness and x-ray diffraction residual stress analysis data to those prescribed stress intensities. Once the shot-peening parameters effect on shot-peening intensity was characterized, specific intensities and parameters were selected over an intensity range dictated by AMRDEC for each material to assess the sensitivity on fatigue strength.