Application of Vibropeening on Aero-Engine Component

The ball pressure polishing or Vibropeening method is one of famous polishing methods mainly used for treatment of car wheels or various types of furniture and cutlery. Together with the surfaces improvement without material removal as an optical embellishment this method enables hardening of component surfaces due to introduction of residual stresses by the knock effect of the media vibration. The hardening effect has not been studied in detail so far. Vibropeening could be used on aero-engine components as an alternative technology to shot peening and vibropolishing, which allows reduction of cost especially on complex geometry parts such as blisk. This paper describes the treatment of test components for understanding of key process variables and the method applied for process evaluation. Special attention was paid on investigating the correlation of process parameters and surface properties of compressor blades. Variation of process variables in vibropeening achieved a significant increase of residual stress level - comparable with shot peening - on compressor blades. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.