Commercial Shot Peening Services in Minneapolis, MN

Eaglemaster’s certified shot peening services leverage controlled compressive stress to extend fatigue life and prevent failure of metal components.

What Is Shot Peening?

Shot peening is a cold working process that uses spherical shot propelled at a part’s surface to impart compressive stress while relieving tensile stress. Valued across a wide variety of industries including the aerospace, automotive and industrial sectors, shot peening helps increase component lifespan, improve the fatigue life of high-stress metal parts and prevents cracking, stretching and similar types of stress corrosion.

How Does the Shot Peening Process Work?

Spherical media called shot is propelled at high velocity toward the surface of metal parts. The resulting impact creates microscopic dimples. The formation of a dimple requires the surface to yield tension, while the structure of the material tries to reform the original shape, producing the hemisphere of cold-worked material highly stressed in compression below the dimple.

Shot peening is a process designed for repeatability and consistency throughout high-production runs. Additionally, Eaglemaster’s experts can refine our shot peening process to meet standardized industry specifications (like AMS or MIL) or customer requested specifications.

What Media Is Used for Shot Peening?

There are a few different types of media materials used in shot peening: glass, ceramic, steel and stainless steel. The type of media is determined by the material of the part, its geometry and the required intensity to achieve the required stress relief, and resulting fatigue and cracking resistances. The size of the media is also important, as it affects the depth of the compressive layer, general coverage area and resulting material finish.

At Eaglemaster, we collaborate with clients to select the ideal media type and size based on application and specification requirements. We are experienced in developing shot peening processes for parts that will be put to use in all types of critical industries, including solutions tailored to unique components.

How Does Shot Peening Affect Surface Finish?

There is no avoiding that shot peening will create deformations in the material surface. The process is designed to create controlled deformations. As a byproduct, the surface of the material will be rougher than a non-shot peened part. However, the many benefits of improved fatigue performance often outweigh the tradeoff of surface roughness, especially when strategic mitigating steps are used. By choosing the right type and size of media, as well as refining the intensity at which the shot is propelled, Eaglemaster can control the resulting surface finish after shot peening. We can even meet the highly precise engineering specifications for components in the demanding industries like aerospace.