Preliminary study of the hardening effect and fatigue behaviour enhancement through vibration assisted ball burnishing on C45 Steel

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present a preliminary study of the effects of ball burnishing with vibration assistance on cycle fatigue endurance of cylindrical specimens subjected to bending stress and obtain the best input parameters. The specimens were burnished through 6 different combinations of preload force, number of passes and vibration assistance, finding that burnishing while applying a 90-N preload and 5 passes derives in the longest lifespan, being the vibration assistance not significant with this combination. In terms of roughness, it has been proved that the vibration assistance improves the finishing significatively, allowing to reduce the number of passes compared to NVABB and, as optimal ball-burnishing parameters, the 90-N preload and 5 passes combination derivates in a 93% improvement in terms of mean roughness of the surface. It is also been proved the hardening effect provoked by the ball-burnishing, being an improvement estimated around the 51% in the best case.