Experimental study of nonlinear Rayleigh wave propagation in shot-peened aluminum plates—Feasibility of measuring residual stress

Shot-peening is widely used in the aerospace industry to enhance the resistance of structural components to fatigue damage and stress corrosion by putting the outside layer of a component under an initial, residual compressive stress. The ability to measure these near-surface residual stresses is useful from a quality control and certification perspective, and can help predict the fatigue life of shot-peened components. This paper presents experimental results to examine the feasibility of measuring near-surface residual stresses using nonlinear Rayleigh surface waves. Experiments are conducted on aluminum alloy (AA 7075) samples shot-peened at different peening intensities and thus with different levels of residual stresses. The surface roughness of these samples is also measured. The nonlinear ultrasonic results show a large increase in the acoustic nonlinearity parameter, indicating the potential of nonlinear ultrasonics for the in situ measurement of near-surface residual stresses. The effects of surface roughness and the driving frequency on the measured acoustic nonlinearity parameter are briefly discussed. Finally, a preliminary model is used to interpret some experimental results. Future work to evaluate the separate contributions of cold work, residual stress and surface roughness to the total measured nonlinearity is also discussed.