The oil lubricated fretting wear behavior under different sliding displacements and frequencies of Ti6Al4V titanium alloy as affected by micro-shot peening

The fretting wear behavior under oil lubricants is of great practical significance since oil is usually used to regulate fretting regime for minimizing wear. In this study, micro-shot peening (MSP) was performed on Ti6Al4V titanium alloy, in which 0.6 MPa injection air pressure, 60 s shot time and high-speed steel particles with an average diameter of 50 μm were used. Surface topography, microstructure, hardness and compression residual stress of test samples were examined. Oil lubricated fretting wear tests were then conducted between titanium alloy sample and GCr15 counterbody under different sliding displacements and frequencies. The test results show that the surface structure of MSP treated samples experienced severe plastic deformation, the surface hardness was increased from 310.8 HV to 433.5 HV, and a compression residual stress of −303.5 MPa was introduced within surface layer. Moreover, MSP treatment reduced the coefficients of friction through producing a micro-dimpled surface. Thereby, the fretting wear resistance of MSP treated sample under oil lubricated condition was improved. By comparison, at higher sliding displacement and frequency, the ability of MSP treatment to resist fretting wear was improved more significantly since more better lubricating effect can be obtained. Fretting damage of untreated sample under oil lubrication was mainly attributed to fatigue wear, delamination wear, abrasive wear and oxidation wear, while that of MSP treated sample was mainly regional peeling off and abrasive wear. •Surface hardness was increased and compression residual stress was introduced by MSP.•MSP improved the fretting wear resistance of Ti6Al4V under oil lubricating condition.•Surface hardness, residual stress and surface topography influenced the anti-fretting wear resistance.•Higher sliding displacement and frequency could help MSP achieve more obvious improvement effect.