Surface Integrity and Corrosion Resistance of 42CrMo4 High-Strength Steel Strengthened by Hard Turning

To improve the surface corrosion resistance of 42CrMo4 high-strength steel used in a marine environment, this article studied the effects of hard turning on the surface integrity and corrosion resistance of 42CrMo4 high-strength steel through the single factor experimental method, namely hard turning, polarization corrosion, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, potentiodynamic polarization curve, and salt spray tests. The results indicated that the surface integrity was modified by the hard turning, with a surface roughness lower than Ra 0.8 μm, decreased surface microhardness, fine and uniform surface microstructure, and dominant surface residual compressive stress. The hard turning process was feasible to strengthen the surface corrosion resistance of 42CrMo4 high-strength steel. The better corrosion resistance of the surface layer than that of the substrate material can be ascribed to the uniform carbides and compact microstructure. The corrosion resistance varied with cutting speeds as a result of the changed surface microhardness and residual compressive stress, varied with feed rates as a result of the changed surface roughness, and varied with cutting depths as a result of the changed surface residual compressive stress, respectively. The surface integrity with smaller surface roughness and microhardness and bigger surface residual compressive stress was beneficial for corrosion resistance.

Numerical simulation of the effect of ultrasonic impact treatment on welding residual stress

Ultrasonic impact treatment (UIT) is an effective method that has been widely applied in welding structure to improve the fatigue properties of materials. It combines mechanical impact and ultrasonic vibration to produce plastic deformation on the weld joints surface, which introduces beneficial compressive residual stress distribution. To evaluate the effect of UIT technology on alleviating the residual stress of welded joints, a novel numerical analysis method based on the inherent strain theory is proposed to simulate the stress superposition of welding and subsequent UIT process of 304 stainless steel. Meanwhile, the experiment according to the process was carried out to verify the simulation of residual stress values before and after UIT. By the results, optimization of UIT application could effectively reduce the residual stress concentration after welding process. Residual tensile stress of welded joints after UIT is transformed into residual compressive stress. UIT formed a residual compressive stress layer with a thickness of about 0.13 mm on the plate. The numerical simulation results are consistent with the experimental results. The work in this paper could provide theoretical basis and technical support for the reasonable evaluation of the ultrasonic impact on residual stress elimination and mechanical properties improvement of welded joints.

Study on the Abrasive Retention Capacity on the Surface of Electroplated Diamond Wire Saw

The quality and efficiency of slicing will be reduced if the abrasives on the surface of diamond wire saw shed in sawing. Generally, the diamond abrasives are held on the surface of electroplated diamond wire saw by a nickel-plated layer, and the abrasive retention state, reflecting abrasive shedding, can be characterized by the plastic deformation of the plating layer at the interface between the nickel-plated layer and the abrasive. To gain an in-depth understanding of the abrasive shedding mechanism, a finite element model of the double-cone diamond abrasive embedded in a nickel-plated layer was established in this paper to research the effects of the residual compressive stress and hardness of the nickel-plated layer as well as the protrusion height of the diamond abrasive on the abrasive retention capacity. The results show that the presence of the residual compressive stress in the nickel-plated layer resulted in the decrease of the abrasive retention capacity. And the higher hardness of the nickel-plated layer could enhance its abrasive retention capacity. Furthermore, the depth of the diamond abrasive inside the nickel-plated layer was decreased with the increase of its protrusion height, which would reduce the abrasive retention capacity. Based on the results of the finite element analysis, a calculation procedure of abrasive shedding rate was presented. Subsequently, the slicing experiment of a single crystal silicon rod was carried out by the Meyer Burger RTD6800 multi-wire sawing machine and the electroplated diamond wire saw with a core wire diameter of 65μm. The abrasive shedding rate of the diamond wire saw caused by sawing was analyzed theoretically and experimentally. The research work is of great significance to improve the quality detection and evaluation of electroplated diamond wire saw.

Effects of Peening Direction on Reverse Transformation Induced by Shot-Peening for Fe-33%Ni Alloy

Effects of peening direction on the reverse transformation induced by the shot-peening for the Fe-33 mass%Ni alloy with large amount of martensite (α’) are investigated. When the angle between the peened surface and the peening direction (Hereafter, peening angle) is 90 o, the reverse transformation occurs and subsequently martensitic transformation is induced by the shot-peening. On the other hand, in case of the peening angle of 30 o, only reverse transformation occurs. Furthermore, the volume fraction of austenite (γ) in the specimen after the shot-peening increases as the peening angle decreases. This means that the reverse transformation induced by the shot-peening is enhanced by decreasing the peening angle. Moreover, residual compressive stress around the peened surface increases as the peening angle decreases. Since the hydrostatic compressive stress decreases phase transformation temperature, the phase transformation temperature around the peened surface would be decreased by the shot-peening. Therefore, the reverse transformation behavior depending on the peening angle can be explained by the residual compressive stress due to the shot-peening.

Effects of High Toughness and Welding Residual Stress for Unstable Fracture Prevention

Unstable fractures generally occur in brittle materials under low-temperature service conditions. Toughness and welding residual stress are the main factors that should be evaluated when defining a brittle crack propagation path. In this study, a rainbow welding technique was proposed and confirmed as being significantly useful in preventing unstable fractures in weld joints. The residual compressive stress in the crack front was particularly useful for decreasing the possibility of brittle fracture. The objective was to examine the effect of high welding consumable toughness welding residual stress, especially for avoiding brittle fracture through welding residual compressive stress.

Impact on Mechanical Properties and Microstructural Response of Nickel-Based Superalloy GH4169 Subjected to Warm Laser Shock Peening

Laser shock peening (LSP), as an innovative surface treatment technology, can effectively improve fatigue life, surface hardness, corrosion resistance, and residual compressive stress. Compared with laser shock peening, warm laser shock peening (WLSP) is a newer surface treatment technology used to improve materials’ surface performances, which takes advantage of thermal mechanical effects on stress strengthening and microstructure strengthening, resulting in a more stable distribution of residual compressive stress under the heating and cyclic loading process. In this paper, the microstructure of the GH4169 nickel superalloy processed by WLSP technology with different laser parameters was investigated. The proliferation and tangling of dislocations in GH4169 were observed, and the dislocation density increased after WLSP treatment. The influences of different treatments by LSP and WLSP on the microhardness distribution of the surface and along the cross-sectional depth were investigated. The microstructure evolution of the GH4169 alloy being shocked with WLSP was studied by TEM. The effect of temperature on the stability of the high-temperature microstructure and properties of the GH4169 alloy shocked by WLSP was investigated.

Semi-Empirical Prediction of Residual Stress Distributions Introduced by Turning Inconel 718 Alloy Based on Lorentz Function

The residual stress of machined surface has a crucial influence on the performance of parts. It results in large deviations in terms of the position accuracy, dimension accuracy and service life. The purpose of the present study is to provide a novel semi-empirical residual stress prediction approach for turning Inconel 718. In the method, the bimodal Lorentz function was originally applied to express the residual stress distribution. A statistical model between the coefficients of the bimodal Lorentz function and cutting parameters was established by the random forest regression, in order to predict the residual stress distribution along the depth direction. Finally, the turning experiments, electrolytic corrosion peeling, residual stress measurement and correlation analysis were carried out to verify the accuracy of predicted residual stress. The results show that the bimodal Lorentz function has a great fitting accuracy. The adjusted R2 (Ad-R2) are ranging from 95.4% to 99.4% and 94.7% to 99.6% in circumferential and axial directions, respectively. The maximum and minimum errors of the surface residual tensile stress (SRTS) are 124.564 MPa and 18.082 MPa, those of the peak residual compressive stress (PRCS) are 84.649 MPa and 3.009 MPa and those of the depth of the peak residual compressive stress (DPRCS) are 0.00875 mm and 0.00155 mm, comparing three key feature indicators of predicted and simulated residual stress. The predicted residual stress is highly correlated with the measured residual stress, with correlation coefficients greater than 0.8. In the range of experimental measurement error, the research in the present work provides a quite accurate method for predicting the residual stress in turning Inconel 718, and plays a vital role in controlling the machining deformation of parts.

Impact on Mechanical Properties and Microstructural Response of Nickel-Based Super-Alloy GH4169 Subjected to Warm Laser Shock Peening

Laser shock peening as an innovative surface treatment technology can effectively improve the fatigue life, sur-face hardness, corrosion resistance, and residual compressive stress. Compared with the laser shock peening, the warm laser shock peening (WLSP) is a new surface treatment technology to improve materials’ surface performances, which takes advantage of thermal mechanical effects on stress strengthening and micro-structure strengthening, results in more stable distribution of the residual compressive stress under heating and cyclic loading process. In this paper, the microstructure of GH4169 nickel super-alloy processed by WLSP technology with differ-ent laser parameters were investigated. The proliferation and tangling of dislocations in GH4169 were observed and the dislocation density increased after WLSP treatment. The influences of different treatment by LSP and WLSP on the microhardness distribution of the surface and along cross-sectional depth were investi-gated. The microstructure evolution of the GH4169 alloy being shocked with WLSP were studied by TEM. The effect of temperature on the stability of high temperature microstructure and properties of GH4169 alloy WLP was investigated.