Mouna Baklouti, Ridha Mnif and Riadh Elleuch*
The Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, vol. 26, no. 9, pp.2711-2717, 2012

Abstract : Brass alloy is widely used because of some attractive properties such as high electrical and thermal conductivity. But its fatigue performance after surface treatment is not very well explored in literature. Thus, in the present work, particular emphasis was given to the influence of surface treatment by shot peening on the fatigue life of brass alloy, throughout surface roughness and microstructural evolution. Fatigue tests were performed on unpeened, peened and peened then polished specimens. Various times of surface hardening treatment as 30, 60 and 120 min were considered. Experimental results reveal that the fatigue life of peened brass alloy decrease for all studied hardening treatment conditions. Surface roughness and microstructural properties showed large sensitivity to the shot peening process of brass alloy.

Keyword : Brass alloy; Fatigue life; Mechanical surface treatment; Roughness; Shot peening