Feasibility Study of Inducing Desirable Residual Stress Distribution in Laser Micromachining

Laser machining/micromachining normally induces in the target material a residual stress distribution, which may favor microcrack propagation leading to reduced fatigue life of the material. This paper investigates the feasibility of introducing the effect of laser shock processing (LSP), that is, imparting a compressive residual stress distribution into the target material, into laser micromachining processes. Following a brief review of the principles and modeling aspects of LSP, various possibilities of such introduction were discussed and its feasibility was experimentally and numerically shown.