Measuring shot peening media velocity by indent size comparison

Shot peening is a manufacturing method that makes indentations on a components surface by impacting it with small steel balls (media). In a production environment the shot peening process is usually controlled by defining media size, coverage and Almen intensity. For simulating shot peening, the media velocity is needed and therefore it must be measured or correlated to the Almen intensity. This paper details a method to record indentations on a test plate and then compare them to single shot indentations with measured velocities. For small media sizes the results are in reasonable agreement with other published results but at larger sizes there is a larger spread in published results. It is therefore recommended that the media velocity is either measured directly or that the indents are analysed as presented in this paper.