Understanding the Relations between Surface Stress State and Microstructure Feature for Enhancing the Fatigue Performance of TC6 Titanium Alloy

Abstract

Fatigue performance has always been an important factor affecting the application of titanium alloy. The service life of TC6 titanium alloy is easily reduced under a continuously alternating load. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a new method to improve fatigue performance. Laser shock peening (LSP) is a widely proposed method to enhance the fatigue performance. Here, through experiments and finite element simulations, it was found that LSP can prolong the fatigue life of TC6 by improving the surface stress state. In strengthening processes, the generation of residual stress was mainly attributed to the change of microstructure, which could be reflected by the statistical results of grain sizes. The content of grains with a size under 0.8 μm reached 78%, and the microhardness value of treated TC6 was 18.7% higher than that of an untreated sample. In addition, the surface residual compressive stress was increased to −600 MPa at the depth of 1500 μm from the surface. On this basis, the fatigue life was prolonged to 135%, and the ultimate fracture macroscopic was also changed. With the treatment of LSP, the fatigue performance of TC6 is highly promoted. The strengthening mechanism of LSP was established with the aim of revealing the relationship between microstructure and stress state for enhancing the fatigue performance in whatever shapes.