Shot Peening of Metals for Protection Against Stress Corrosion Cracking^⋆

Shot peening, when properly incorporated into a specific product design and effected by a properly designed and controlled process, will protect hardened (RC36-42) AISI 410 stainless steel from stress corrosion failure in high purity waters. This protection occurs at temperatures up to 300 F for a useful finite period at stresses up to 60,000 psi, and indefinitely at stresses up to approximately 45,000 psi, about one-third of the yield strength. Before shot peening is used for protection against stress corrosion attack, consideration must be given to the effects of the environment, anticipated stresses, and temperature of application on the fadeout of the surface residual layer. For most applications there should not be any problem in establishing adequate process and quality control procedures. The basic data developed on shot peening of AISI 410 could be made applicable to other susceptible alloys as means for protection against stress corrosion attack. 5.9.3, 3.5.8, 6.2.5, 4.6.5