A Temperature-Dependent, Nonlinear Kinematic/Isotropic Hardening Material Constitutive Model of the Surface Layer of 37Cr4 Steel Subjected to Slide Burnishing

Abstract

Slide burnishing (SB) is a simple and efficient method for finishing symmetric rotary metal parts. The thermo-mechanical nature of SB has not been studied in the literature and is, therefore, an object of investigation in this article. A combination of finite element method (FEM) analyses and experiments is used, and a very important part of building the FEM model is the constitutive model of the surface layer of the workpiece being slide burnished. A temperature-dependent, nonlinear kinematic/isotropic hardening material constitutive model of the surface layer of 37Cr4 steel has been modelled on the basis of temperature-dependent indentation tests and inverse FEM analyses. In order to illustrate the benefits of this thermo-mechanical constitutive model, 3D FEM simulations of the SB of holes have been conducted; doing so establishes the effect of the generated temperature on the residual hoop stress distribution around the processed hole. Fully coupled thermal stress, sequentially coupled, and temperature-independent FEM simulations have been conducted to determine the residual hoop stresses. Alternatively, these stresses are experimentally obtained through the modified “split ring” method. It has been proven that a sequentially coupled thermal stress FEM simulation with nonlinear kinematic/isotropic hardening predicts the residual hoop stresses in such a manner as to be in satisfactory agreement with the experimental outcomes. It has been established that the generated temperature reduces the beneficial effect from the introduced residual stresses, thus reducing the fatigue life of the corresponding structural component.