Finite element analysis of residual stress induced by shot peening process

The aircraft industry has only recently begun to explore possible application of welding as an alternative joining method for the design of future large civil airliner wing. One of the main obstacles, encountered in the past years, to welding application within the aircraft industries were due to failure in the weldments, caused by high tensile residual stresses present in the region of the weld, reducing drastically fatigue strength of welded joints. Improvement in the fatigue life of the welded joint can be obtained if compressive residual stresses are introduced at the weld region.Shot peening is a manufacturing process intended to give aircraft structures the final shape and to introduce a compressive residual state of stress inside the material in order to increase fatigue life. This paper presents the modeling and simulation of the residual stress field resulting from the shot peening process. The results achieved show that a significant decrease of welding induced tensile residual stress magnitude can be obtained. Good agreement between experimental and numerical results was achieved.