A finite element study of thermal residual stress relaxation in multiple laser shock peened Ti-6Al-4V

Creation of a compressive residual stress in specimen that are exposed to fatigue induced failure, is considered to be a beneficial solution in order to neutralize all or some parts of the external force. Using components with this residual field stresses in high temperature applications can lead to reduction and termination of residual stress field and the effectiveness of this residual stress fields in high temperature is always questioned. So this paper aimed to simulate and study residual stress field made by multiple laser shot peening which is a novel method to create in depth residual stress. Thermal relaxation of this residual stress field due to working conditions was also investigated by FEM simulation in ABAQUS. Ti-6Al-4V was the employed material and since high strain rates were involved in dynamic loading process of simulation, Johnson-Cook material model was used to count for nonlinear material behavior. Results showed that created residual stress field from this method is much deeper than similar conventional shot peening process and by using multiple laser shot peening on the same spot, it is possible to achieve 640 MPa in one loading cycle, 834 MPa in two cycle loading and 889 MPa in three cycle loading. By applying 600 ℃ on specimen, it was observed that for each of single shot, double shot and triple shot specimens, a surface residual stress relaxation of 28.13%, 41.37% and 43.87% occurred, respectively.