Laser Peening - A Processing Tool to Strengthen Metals or Alloys

摘要

Laser peening is an emerging modern process that impresses a compressive stress into the surfaces of metals or alloys. This treatment can reduce the rate of fatigue cracking and stress corrosion cracking in structural metals or alloys needed for aerospace, nuclear power plants, and military applications. Laser peening could also be used to form metals or alloys into precise shapes without their yielding, leaving their surfaces in a crack resistant compressive state.