Fatigue behavior of superferritic stainless steel laser shock treated without protective coating

The laser shock peening (LSP) is a new technique that improves the fatigue life of metallic components by inducing deep compressive residual stresses through the surface. However, the beneficial effects of LSP depend on the persistence and stability of such residual stress fields under cyclic loading and temperature. Moreover, if no absorbent coating is used in LSP operation, thermal effects can occur on the metallic substrate. The purpose of this work is to study the influence of LSP, without protective coating and with different pulse densities, on the low cyclic fatigue behavior of a superferritic stainless steel UNS S 44600. These results are correlated with observations performed by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with electron diffraction spectroscopy (EDS). The hole-drilling method is used to measure residual stresses. The micro-hardness and roughness profiles are also presented. This paper shows that LSP without coating produces beneficial compression residual stresses. However, in the first 10 μm beneath the surface, thermal effects occur that induce intergranular corrosion. This intergranular corrosion deteriorates the fatigue properties of a superferritic stainless steel UNS S 44600.