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Shot peening to repair oversize titanium bore

2005

Does anyone have any information on the likely surface growth on Titanium 6AL-4V after shot peening?

The titanium is in the annealed condition and we are trying to recover a nominal bore size of 220 mm by at least +35 microns.

Sleeving or an oversize bearing has been rejected by the customer as an option as has welding as the part is finished machined and may distort if a heat based process is used.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Philip Waddington
- Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA

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I think blasting (as well as knurling, hammering, etc.) is never the way to go. Even if you succeed distorting the surface enough to "tight" it, the effect will soon disappear leaving an even worsescenario of a bearing becoming loose during service. You may want to explore selective (brush) plating. The problem you have described is every day's life for many brush platers and titanium is plateable with this process.

Guillermo Marrufo
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
2005

I agree with Guillermo that brush plating would be a method to resize this Bore. Rebuiding and sizing dimensions is one of the prime applications for this process and plating onto titanium can be performed on site as well as in house.

Chris Helwig
- Valencia, California
2005