Residual Stresses and Fatigue of Shot Peened Cast Iron

• The complex geometry of cylinder head in heavy-duty diesel engine makes grey cast iron or compact graphite iron a perfect material choice due to its castability, thermal conductivity and damping capacity. To increase the efficiency of the engine, the fatigue property of the material needs to be improved. Shot peening is often used to increase the fatigue strength of components. The benefits are associated with the compressive stresses induced and with surface hardening. In this research project, these effects on grey and compact iron have been analyzed for different shot peening parameters using XRD, SEM and fatigue testing methods. The ultimate aim of the project is to increase the fatigue strength of cast irons by optimization of residual stresses.The XRD measurements and SEM examinations revealed that the shot peening parameters including shot size and peening intensity had significant influences on the resulted residual stresses and strain hardening while changing the coverage made little difference. Also differences in the peening results between the two materials were observed, which were ascribed to an effect of the different graphite morphology. Nevertheless, a residual stress profile similar to the one general considered to improve the fatigue strength in steels could be obtained in both grey and compact iron after shot peening.The axial fatigue testing with R=-1 on the grey iron showed that peening using large shot size and high peening intensity (heavy shot peening) resulted in a fatigue strength reduction of 15-20% in comparison with the mechanically polished surface. The negative effects are likely related to surface damage and relatively high tensile residual stresses in subsurface induced by the heavy peening. Grey cast iron has low ductility in tension and therefore tensile residual stresses may promote multiple cracking and crack networking during cyclic loading.Shot peening using much smaller shots and lower intensity (gentle shot peening) which resulted in a much smaller residual stress field gave no significant changes in fatigue strength. However, a short time annealing at 285°C of specimens being gently shot peened increased the fatigue strength roughly by 10%. The improvement could be an effect of precipitates formed due to the heat treatment, which lock the dislocation movement under cyclic loading.

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