Fatigue strength improvement for ship structures by Ultrasonic Peening

Ultrasonic Peening has attracted recent attention as a fatigue strength improvement method. The main features of Ultrasonic Peening are generation of compressive residual stress and smoothing of weld toe radius. However, for ship structures, various loads act on the hull structure over a ship??s life, including the construction period, and the compressive stress field of structural members generated by Ultrasonic Peening may change. In order to verify the technique's benefits to ship structures, the influence of load history on the improvement effects on fatigue strength by Ultrasonic Peening needs to be clarified. In this paper, the improvement effects on fatigue strength by Ultrasonic Peening for welding joints were confirmed by experiments with several joint type specimens. In addition, fatigue tests modeling launching, when the stress conditions of a ship's structure changes significantly, were carried out in order to clarify the influence of load history in a ship??s life. Consequently, some cases that have the possibility of decreasing or increasing the improvement effects on fatigue strength by Ultrasonic Peening were clarified, and some efficient methods of Ultrasonic Peening for ship structures were suggested.