A Big Lift for the Aerospace Industry/Peening technology enables planes to fly lighter and longer.

摘要

The daring knights of yore somehow stumbled upon peening as a method for saving their hides. Pounding a sword blade with a rounded hammer extended the life of the weapon and, no doubt, the life of its owner as well. To this day, peening has far-reaching safety consequences as manufacturers strive to produce stronger, lighter products, particularly in the fields of automobile and aircraft production. Automobile manufacturers often peen defensively, meaning they fall back on, the process to strengthen a spring, gear, connecting rod, anti-roll bar, or other component that fails prematurely. Because its products travel at higher altitudes, the aerospace industry takes a more proactive approach through the development of stringent peening specifications, in which adherence must frequently be documented. Two primary factors drive aerospace's attention to peening details and documentation. For starters, a tight paper trail helps trace a potential part problem if a catastrophe occurs. Secondly, the industry relies heavily on shot peening technology to keep its products flying lighter and longer. Modern planes depend on the capability of shot peening to strengthen blades, roots, stators, gears, discs, combustion chambers, structural members, and many other parts too numerous to mention (Figure 1). Peening offers a big lift for the aerospace industry, but it must be tightly controlled to achieve anticipated performance gains.