Surface nanocrystallization of commercial pure titanium by shot peening

The surface nanostructures of commercial pure titanium was realized by the modified shot peening equipment commonly used in industry through the special treatment process. The results show that high-energy-shot-peening(HESP) commonly used to prepare nanostructured surface layers can be achieved by the increase of pill size, pill speed, and treatment time in the commercial shot peening equipment. XRD, SEM and TEM were used to characterize the surface layer microstructure of treated specimens. The analytic results show that the main deformation mode of commercial pure Ti is twinning. At the beginning of deformation, the dislocations are formed and twins occur within or on plane, then twins in intersection plane appear, and at last the twin characteristics disappear in the surface layer after longer treatment time. The deformation layer depth increases with treatment time in a certain period when the pill size and speed are unchanged. And in the severe plastic deformation (SPD) layer in which the twins are not identified easily by using SEM, the nanocrystalline microstructures are found under TEM. The finest grain size in the surface layer is about 40 nm, and the depth of nanostructured layers is over 60 μm. The microhardness of the nanostructured surface layers is enhanced significantly after shot peening compared with that of the initial simple.