Abstract
Copper is expected to be increasingly used in electric vehicle components because of its high electrical and thermal conductivity. On the other hand, copper has the disadvantage of low fatigue strength compared to structural members such as steel and aluminum alloys. Therefore, the peening treatment is used in this study to increase the strength of copper. However, the projectile used in conventional peening treatments is much harder than copper, which may lead to deterioration of surface properties. Therefore, we decided to use a resin particle peening treatment that uses soft resin particles. For the projectile material, we used particles made from crushed walnut, apricot, and peach, which are natural material particles. Ceramic particles were used for comparison. Hardness measurements revealed that the near-surface hardness increased even when resin particles were used. In addition, compressive residual stresses were observed on the surface. Fatigue tests revealed that the fatigue strength improvement effect was higher than that of nontreated materials or hard particles. These results indicate that the resin particle peening treatment is an effective method for strengthening copper.
