Enhancing surface integrity of A7050-T7451 aluminium alloy by pneumatic machine hammer peening

Abstract

Aerostructures withstand cyclic mechanical loads and therefore, their design must fulfil surface integrity and fatigue strength requirements. This paper studies the effect of pneumatic machine hammer peening on surface integrity of 7050-T7451 aluminium alloy. Specimens were hammer peened using two different stepover distances (0.07 and 0.35 mm) and initial offset (0.3 and 0.5 mm). A Kistler dynamometer was used to measure the forces generated by hammer peening. Then, the surface topography, residual stresses and microstructural damage of the specimens were characterised. The results demonstrate that the magnitude of residual stresses and the thickness of the affected layer increases when reducing the stepover distance, while surface roughness reduces. Additionally, none of the tested conditions produced microstructural defects. These findings suggest that pneumatic hammer peening is an additional process to manufacture thin-walled structural aluminium alloy components.