Analysis of Fretting Fatigue of Cavitation Shotless Peened Ti-6Al-4V

Fretting fatigue behavior of cavitation shotless peened titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V coupons was investigated using finite element method and a critical plane-based multi-axial fatigue parameter. Cavitation shotless peening (CSP)-induced compressive residual stress, which was larger at the contact surface than its counterpart from the shot peening (SP). However, compressive residual stress decreased more sharply with distance from the contact surface in CSP than in SP. Analysis using a critical plane-based multi-axial fatigue parameter demonstrated that the crack initiation would occur inside the cavitation shotless peened specimen which matched with the experimental observations. On the other hand, crack initiation would occur on the contact surface in the shot peened specimen which again was in agreement with experiments. The analysis also showed that the crack propagation part of the total fretting fatigue life was longer in the shot peened specimen than in the cavitation shotless peened specimen while the crack initiation part was almost equal from both peening methods. Therefore, CSP could not improve the fretting fatigue life/strength as much as the SP did but it improved relative to the un-peened specimen.