Effect of shot peening on the critical buckling load of stainless steel 304 columns immersed in sea water

Abstract A machine part subjected to an axial compressive load is called strut. But, a vertical strut is known as a column. The machine members that must be investigated for the column action are connecting rods, piston rods, screw jack, etc. When a column is subjected to a compressive load and this load is gradually increased, a stage will be reached when the column will be subjected to ultimate load. Beyond this, the column will fail by crushing, and the load will be known as crushing load. When the column is short or intermediate, sometimes this column fails by bending, i.e. buckling. When the column is long, the value of buckling load is low for long columns and is relatively high for intermediate columns. The present investigation focuses on the testing and evaluation of the mechanical end buckling columns (samples) using 304 stainless steel under dry, corrosion, and combined dry with shot peening (SP) process. The buckling behavior of the axial compressive load has been studied experimentally and theoretically using Euler and Rankin theories. The results obtained from the above study manifested that the column, whose slenderness ratio (SR) is more than 120, is denoted as the long column, and the Euler theory can be successfully used. But, when the SR is less than 120, the column is known as an intermediate one. The mechanical and buckling properties exhibited a reduction due to the corrosion media and a reasonable improvement when using SP.