Random impact FEM simulation of irregularly-shaped media for parametric study of vibratory surface enhancement

Abstract

Aerospace materials experience high levels of mechanical and thermal loading, high/low cycle fatigue, and damage from foreign objects during service, which can lead to premature retirement. Mechanical surface treatments of metallic components, for example, fan blades and blisks, are proven to improve fatigue life, improve wear resistance and avoid stress corrosion by introducing work hardening, compressive residual stresses of sub-surface, and surface finishing. Vibropeening can enhance aerospace materials’ fatigue life involving the kinetic agitation of hardened steel media in a vibratory finishing machine that induces compressive stresses into the component sub-layers while keeping a finished surface. Spherical steel balls are the most widely used shape among steel-based media and have been explored for decades. However, they are not always versatile, which cannot access deep grooves, sharp corners, and intricate profiles. Steel ballcones or satellites, when mixed with round steel balls and other steel media (diagonals, pins, eclipses, cones), works very well in such areas that ball-shaped media are unable to reach. However, a methodology of study the effect of irregularly-shaped media in surface enhancement processes has not been established. This paper proposes a finite element-based model to present a methodology for the parametric study of vibratory surface enhancement with irregularly-shaped media and investigates residual stress profiles within a treated area of an Inconel component. The methodology is discussed in detail, which involves a stochastic simulation of orientation, impact force, and impact location. The contrasting effects of a high aspect ratio, or an edge contact, as opposed to rounded and oblique contacts are demonstrated, with further analysis on the superposition of these effects. Finally, the simulation results are compared with actual residual stress measurements and was found to have a max percent difference of 34% up to 20 (Formula presented.) m below the media surface.