Influence of shot peening on high cycle fatigue properties of the high-strength wrought magnesium alloy AZ80

The influence of shot peening on fatigue performance of the high-strength wrought magnesium alloy AZ80 was investigated. Shot peening effectively improved the fatigue life: an improvement of 60% in the fatigue strength was obtained at the optimum condition. In addition. the magnesium alloy reacted sensitively to shot peening. This sensitivity was attributed to the limited deformability of the hexagonal crystal structure of magnesium at room temperature. Compared to published data. the optimum condition for shot peening in the present work moves to higher intensities and the process window becomes larger. (C) 2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.