by Ananda Talukdar, Official MFN Trainer for India 

I take this opportunity to formally announce that MFN starting from this year will be conducting both communal and dedicated in-house workshop in India. This will give immense benefit to the industry by way of exposure to the latest technology in Shot Peening and Blast cleaning. The  1st workshop will be from the 12th -13th of September 2008 and will be held in Chennai.

The present scenario of global warming has put a  severe strain on automobile Engineers as with every passing day the emission norms are becoming stricter which forces them to design more fuel efficient vehicles. Simple common sense says if the Kerb weight is less, the vehicle consumes less fuel.  Hence, automobile engineers have to design smaller parts to carry greater loads & be fuel-efficient. Further, with changing times the design criteria of materials have also changed from yield strengths to fatigue limits to meet the present day conditions of extended warranties. This is where Shot Peening plays a major role. According to European network of surface and pre-stress engineering and design – ENSPED “It is possible to reduce the weight of a 10 kg gear box by 5-10 % using shot peening, thus saving 0.5 kg of steel”.

It is for these benefits that the automobile industry has been extending the usage of Shot Peening to a very large number of parts. So it becomes very important to understand the Principal of Shot Peening and its usage. Lack of sufficient knowledge can lead to cost overruns, major bottlenecks and can also lead to catastrophic failures. My observations in many of my visits to those organizations carrying out the shot peening process has not been satisfactory. In fact they are doing shot blasting and not shot peening, as there understanding of Shot Peening means measuring the Almen intensity only and while probing you find that they are unaware of coverage, saturation curve, the effect of shot size and hardness, the effect of over peening and many such parameters which remain unanswered. In one such instance, the organization was able to achieve the required Almen intensity but not the required Residual Stress. However, they did get the required residual stress after few more trials. Now the most important question is whether in actual production they can maintain the consistency in the process to achieve the desired residual stress. The answer is NO, because the control parameters are not known. Repercussions are always  of very serious nature. That is why the American Gear manufactures Association standard ANSI/AGMA 2004-B89 states: ”Shot Peening… may improve the bending fatigue strength of a gear tooth as much as 25%” but warns that “Shot Peening should not be confused with grit blasting & shot blasting which are cleaning operations”. This is where training on shot peening becomes very important.

Specialists from across the globe have designed the topics for MFN workshop and as such are very comprehensive in nature. It becomes a good platform to learn the basics of Shot Peening. I am sure the Indian industry is going to get the maximum benefit. So operators, supervisors, engineers and designers will be able to learn either something completely new, or at least be able to refresh their knowledge. I am convinced these workshops will extend great help to those industries who are presently doing shot peening and those who intend doing it in future.

For information
Tel. +91.22 26865391-93
Mob. +91.9820326163
www.mfn.li/workshops