Effectiveness of thermal shotblasting for casehardened steels

The shotpeening process that is used in industry has an ambiguous influence on the contact surface fatigue life of the casehardened steels: it improves this characteristic of the steels 12Kh2N4A and 12Kh2NVFA when using the rational hardening regime and reduces the contact surface fatigue life for any regimes of shotpeening of the temperature-resistant steel 16Kh3NVFMB-Sh. Low-temperature post-deformation annealing improves the contact surface fatigue life of both steels, but it limits their operating temperature. We can broaden the operating temperature range by the use of thermal shotblasting, which involves strain hardening of the casehardened surface that is heated to 250 °C. This is shown in the present work.