Abrasive Waterjet Peening with Elastic Prestress: Effect of Boundary Conditions

Abrasive Waterjet Peening (AWJP) has emerged as a potential surface treatment process for metal implants and prosthetic devices. An elastic tensile prestress has been shown to increase the magnitude and depth of residual stress that can be obtained. In the present investigation, the subsurface residual stress fields resulting from AWJ peening of Ti6Al4V with load control and displacement control elastic prestress were compared. Prestress ranged from 0 to 75% of the material’s yield strength and the subsurface residual stress distribution was quantified using the layer removal technique. Results showed that the surface residual stress was dependent on the boundary conditions for prestress levels less than 60% of the materials yield strength. The magnitude of surface residual stress and the stored elastic energy were up to 50% and 100% larger respectively when load controlled boundary conditions were used. However, the boundary condition did not affect the depth of compressive residual stress.