Influence of surface integrity on fatigue strength of 40CrNi2Si2MoVA steel

Influence of surface integrity (including surface roughness, residual stresses, and microstructure in surface) on fatigue limit of 40CrNi2Si2MoVA steel specimens is investigated comprehensively in this work according to a systematic consideration. The surface integrity of specimens is changed due to several widely used manufacturing procedures: heat-treatment, grinding, electro-polishing, hard chromium plating and shot peening. In comparison with specimen electro-polished after grinding, the specimen without polishing has 10% lower fatigue limit due to higher surface roughness; while shot peening improves the fatigue limit for about 36% due to inducing of compressive residual stress field in the surface and transferring the fatigue crack source from surface to interior. The fatigue limit of specimen with decarburized layer after grinding is lower about 13%, but the shot peening can eliminate its detrimental effect. Hard chromium plating decreases the fatigue limit dramatically. The shot peening carried before plating can improve the fatigue limit of specimen and cause it to get to a level even higher than that of specimen without plating.