Ultrasonic measurement of residual stress in shot peened aluminum alloy

Abstract

Shot peening is a well-known method for extending the fatigue life of metal components by introducing compressive residual stresses near their surfaces. The capability to non-destructively evaluate the near surface residual stress would greatly aid the assurance of proper fatigue life in shot-peened components. This paper addresses issues encountered in near-surface residual stress measurement by an ultrasonic surface wave method. In this method, a variation of ultrasonic surface wave speed with shot peening intensity is measured. Since the effective wave penetration depth inversely related to the excitation frequency, by making measurements at different frequencies, the method has the potential to provide the stress-depth profile. Experiments were conducted on aluminum specimens (alloy 7075–T7351) peened within the Almen peening intensity from 4A–16A. Several factors were found to contribute to the measured responses: surface roughness, near surface texture change, dislocation density increase and residual stress. In this paper, the contributions of residual stress, dislocation density and surface roughness to the overall effect are separately estimated. It is shown that the experimentally observed velocity change in shot peened samples is dominated by the effect of surface roughness while the role of residual stress is much smaller.