Mechanical and thermal stability of mechanically induced near-surface nanostructures

Mechanical surface treatments, such as deep rolling, shot peening, hammering, etc., can significantly improve the fatigue behaviour of metallic materials owing to near-surface nanocrystallisation, strain hardening and compressive residual stresses. In this paper, we investigate the stability of near-surface microstructures of deep rolled austenitic stainless steel AISI 304 and turbine blade alloy Ti–6Al–4V during high temperature fatigue (up to 600 °C) by transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The investigated nanocrystalline regions are stable during short time annealing and unstable during long time annealing at 600 °C. Isothermal fatigue in the low cycle fatigue regime at high stress amplitudes does not alter the nanocrystalline region up to 600 °C.