Enhanced Fatigue Behavior in Quenched and Tempered High-Strength Steel by Means of Double Surface Treatments

Abstract

The aim of this study is to maximize the fatigue life of a high-strength steel. For this purpose, two different kinds of double surface treatments were studied: shot peening plus vibratory finishing and shot peening plus grit blasting. First, a high-intensity peening treatment was applied, with the aim of inducing a deep region submitted to high compressive residual stresses, and a second surface treatment was followed, to reduce the roughness induced in the first treatment and mitigate the damage produced on the specimen surface. The use of such double treatments was demonstrated to be a good choice to achieve high surface hardening and deep compressive residual stress profiles and to minimize surface defects. The fatigue life of the steel was greatly enhanced following the application of both double surface treatments. A vibratory treatment applied for 24 h after the application of a previous shot peening treatment was able to increase the average fatigue life of the single shot-peened samples almost sevenfold, but a much greater fatigue enhancement was produced using grit blasting for only 60 s. Anyway, both second treatments are able to remove the damaged surface layer produced in the first high-intensity shot peening treatment. The obtained results also revealed that an appropriate combination of surface treatments (shot peening + secondary treatment) avoided the initiation of cracks at the surface of the specimens under cyclic bending loads. Instead, crack initiation took place beneath the compressive residual stress field, induced in alumina inclusions that acted as stress concentrators.