Laser shock peening of steam turbine blade for enhanced service life

Fretting-fatigue is an important factor influencing service life of turbine blades. The present paper describes laser shock peening of potential crack nucleation site in the root region of steam turbine blade for its enhanced service life. The experimental study, performed with an in-house developed 2.5 J/7 ns Nd:YAG laser demonstrated that laser peening introduced a residual surface compressive stress of −260 to −390 MPa. Case depth of laser peened surface layer was found to be more than 900 μm.