The material is a conventional alloy Ti–6Al–4V which
was firstly forged in the a phase and continued into the
a + b phase, then rolled and creep flattened in the a + b
phase. The specimens were machined from the forgings
similar to those used for the production of fan blades. A generic
aerofoil geometry, as shown in Fig. 1a, was adopted. The
specimens were laser shock peened over the leading edge at
the Metal Improvement Company, USA at a power density
of 10 GW/cm2
, using a square spot (size 3 3 mm2
), 50%
overlap, 200% coverage and a pulse duration of 27 ns,
parameters that provided an optimum balance between
the induced residual stresses (FOD tolerance) and the
acceptable distortion of the leading edge profile. The total
LSP’d area measured approximately 66 mm by 6 mm