The influence of the dimensions of the surface hardening region on the stress-strain state of a beam with a notch of a semicircular profile

The influence of a size of the surface-plastic hardening region on the stress-strain state of a beam with a notch of a semicircular profile is investigated. The problem is reduced to a boundary value problem of fictitious thermoelasticity with the initial (plastic) deformations modeled by temperature anisrotropic deformations in an inhomogeneous temperature field. The solution is based on the finite element method.
For model calculations, experimental data on the distribution of residual stresses in a smooth beam made of EP742 alloy after ultrasonic mechanical hardening were used as initial information. A variative numerical analysis of the effect of the notch radius and the size of the hardening zone of the beam face on the distribution of the components of the residual stress tensor in the smallest section from the bottom of the concentrator is carried out.
It is shown that when the hardening zone is more than 16–20 % of the entire face area, the stress-strain state in the smallest section is practically stabilized. It was established that if the radius of the semicircular notch is less than the thickness of the hardened layer (the material compression area), an increase (in modulus) of the normal longitudinal component of the residual stress tensor occurs, and if the radius of the notch is greater than the thickness of the hardened layer, then a decrease (in modulus) of this value is observed in comparison with a similar component for a smooth reinforced beam for all values of the hardening zone more than 16–20 % of the entire face area of the beam.
An experimental verification of the developed numerical method based on the finite element method for a beam with a fully hardened face is performed.