Study on the Improvement of Fatigue Crack Growth Performance of 6061-T6 Aluminum Alloy Subject to Laser Shot Peening

Abstract

In order to enhance mechanical property and restrain crack growth of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy, laser shot peening (LSP) was employed to induce compressive residual stress and plastic deformation on the surface of metal. The FEA code ABAQUS and MSC. Fatigue were used to simulate crack growth of Compact tension (CT) specimens treated by LSP. The numerical simulation results showed that LSP can effectively inhibit the crack growth, decrease the crack growth rate as well as increase the final crack size, and as a consequence, fatigue life was extended. Adding peening times could get deeper compressive residual stress field which strengthen material surface and restrain crack growth, but the fatigue stress intensity factor threshold decreases.