Laser shock peening on high-strength steels

High strength steel has been used in the aviation industry and automotive body structural applications to reduce its mass through a reduction in thickness. Therefore, it is very important to enhance its mechanical property, such as microhardness. In the present research, the high strength steel samples were treated by laser shock peening (LSP) with different laser pulse energy and laser pulse width. The microhardness and residual stress were measured to compare the difference between laser energy of 3 J with 10 ns and 5 J with 20 ns. The results in the study show that the surface LSP treatment can increase the microhardness and the compressive residual stress can be found when the samples were tested by hole drilling testing.