Advantages of Shot Peening on Abrasive Wear Resistance of Agricultural Grade Steel

During field operations, agricultural implements are subjected to fatigue and abrasive wear, as a result these implements (components of implements) required frequent replacement, which add to implement running cost as well as down time. Various surface modification techniques have been used to overcome the wear situation of agricultural implements. Of this, shot peening operation is carried out being a very fast and cheap surface treatment technique. Agricultural grade steel (medium carbon) was taken for assessing the wear response in dry sand and field. Surface modification was done using shot peening operation at various peening intensities varying from 0.17A to 0.47A at an interval of 0.1A. The study revealed that the wear resistance improved considerably at mild peening (0.17 A), but further increase in peening intensity led to formation of cracks at surface and sub-surface level that decreased the wear resistance. The study further suggests that the soil working components should be re-shot peened after a certain sliding distance (1.7 km) at 200 N load for better abrasive wear response.