Effects of laser shock processing with different parameters and ways on residual stresses fields of a TC4 alloy blade

The aim of this article was to describe the propagation characteristics of stresses waves and analyze the effects with different shocked parameters and ways on the residual stresses fields in a Ti-6Al-4V (TC4) alloy blade by laser shock processing (LSP). LSP experiments were executed to compare with the simulated results by the finite element method (FEM) in order to validate the strategy of modeling and simulating in the TC4 blade, and the measurement method of peak pressure and spot overlapping was also discussed. Further, FEM was applied to simulate the propagation of stresses waves and residual stresses fields in the TC4 blade by single-sided LSP including different laser spot sizes and pulse widths and simultaneous two-sided LSP, and the propagation characteristics of stresses waves and distribution rules of residual stresses fields in the TC4 blade were described. Results showed that the strategy of modeling and simulating was suitable for numerical simulation. As a result, the compressive residual stresses along the direction of blade surface were increased greatly with increasing the radius of spot size and laser pulse width by single-sided LSP. With the effective distribution of the compressive residual stresses fields and more shocked dimples by simultaneous two-sided LSP, the corresponding mechanics properties were obviously improved than that by single-sided LSP. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.