Study of anti-laser irradiation performance of shot-peened 40CrNiMoA alloy steel

In this paper, shot-peening treatment was introduced to reinforce an alloy surface to protect it from laser irradiation, and experiments were carried out on 40CrNiMoA alloy steel. Macro-mechanical properties were studied and compared before and after both shot-peening and laser irradiation by conducting tensile and hardness measurements. Experimental results showed that the shot-peened alloy showed better mechanical properties after laser irradiation when compared to the alloy without shot-peening treatment. The enhanced ability of the shot-peened alloy for anti-laser irradiation was explained as due to the large residual compressive stress distributions over the shot-peening layer greatly reducing the thermal shock effect introduced by the laser. On the other hand, the growth of microstructures in specific shape absorbed the thermal energy during irradiation, giving a higher probability for the alloy to resist damage.