Influence of water cavitation peening with aeration on fatigue behaviour of SAE1045 steel

Abstract Water cavitation peening (WCP) with aeration is a recent potential method in the surface enhancement techniques. In this method, a ventilation nozzle is adopted to improve the process capability of WCP by increasing the impact pressure, which is induced by the bubble collapse on the surface of components in the similar way as conventional shot peening. In this paper, fatigue tests were conducted on the both-edge-notched flat tensile specimens to assess the influences of WCP on fatigue behaviour of SAE1045 steel. The notched specimens were treated by WCP, and the compressive residual stress distributions in the superficial layer were measured by X-ray diffraction method. The tension–tension (R = Smin/Smax = 0.1, f = 10 Hz) fatigue tests and the fracture surfaces observation by scan electron microscopy (SEM) were conducted. The experimental results show that WCP can improve the fatigue life by inducing the residual compressive stress in the superficial layer of mechanical components.