14th International Conference on Shot Peening

Cavitation Peening Using A Submerged Water Jet And A Pulsed Laser Comparing With Shot Peening

Hitoshi Soyamaa

Tohoku University Dept. Finemechanics,6-6-01 Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Japan soyama@mm.mech.tohoku.ac.jp

Introduction

Although cavitation impact at bubble collapse causes severe erosion in hydraulic machineries such as pumps and valves, it can be used for mechanical surface treatment in the same way as shot peening.

A peening method using cavitation impact is named as cavitation peening [1]. In the case of conventional cavitation peening, cavitation is generated by injecting a high-speed water jet into water, i.e., a submerged water jet with cavitation. In the case of submerged laser peening in which a pulsed laser is used to generate laser ablation, a bubble which behaves like cavitation bubble, is generated after laser ablation, and it develops then collapses with producing impact at bubble collapse. Namely, the submerged laser peening is a kind of cavitation peening using a pulsed laser [2].

Objectives

In the present paper, the improvement of fatigue properties of metallic materials such as stainless steel, aluminium alloy and magnesium alloy by cavitation peening using the submerged water jet and the pulsed laser was examined comparing with shot peening.