Comparison of the effects of induction heating composite shot peening and conventional shot peening on residual stress, microhardness, and microstructure of 20CrMnTi gear steel

As a commonly used surface strengthening technology, shot peening, which can significantly improve the fatigue strength of mechanical parts, is widely used in the fields of vehicles and aviation. To obtain a larger residual compressive stress and further refine the grain size under normal shot peening intensity and coverage, this study proposes an induction heating composite shot peening (IHCSP) surface strengthening method, aiming to utilize the coupling effect of temperature and stress fields to promote the shot peening strengthening effect. An IHCSP test plan was designed and an IHCSP test bench was created to achieve simultaneous induction heating and shot peening. This study compares the surface integrity parameters and microstructures under three processes: unpeened, conventional shot peening, and IHCSP. The results show that the maximum axial and radial compressive residual stresses increase by 72.41 and 75.4 MPa respectively; the depth of the hardened layer increases by 0.3 mm, the martensitic transformation more complete, the grain size decreases by 483 nm, the dislocation density increases significantly, and nanocrystals are obtained on the surface of the material. These results verify the superiority of IHCSP surface strengthening.