A Study on the Microstructural Evolution of a Low Alloy Steel by Different Shot Peening Treatments

Recent studies have shown that severe shot peening can be categorized as a severe plastic deformation surface treatment that is able to strongly modify the microstructure of the surface layer of materials, by both increasing the dislocation density and introducing a large number of defects that define new grain boundaries and form ultrafine structure. In this work, conventional shot peening and severe shot peening treatments were applied to 39NiCrMo3 steel samples. The samples were characterized in terms of microstructure, surface roughness, microhardness, residual stresses, and surface work-hardening as a function of surface coverage. Particular attention was focused on the analysis of the microstructure to assess the evolution of grain size from the surface to the inner material to capture the gradient microstructure. Severe shot peening proved to cause a more remarkable improvement of the general mechanical characteristics compared to conventional shot peening; more significant improvement was associated with the microstructural alteration induced by the treatment. Our datas provide a detailed verification of the relationship between shot peening treatment parameters and the microstructure evolution from the treated surface to the core material.