Hi,

I'd like to know if anyone have any known experience of aerospace shot peening suppliers using several similar machines, and switching between those. In other words, do you think it's possible to have a technique sheet approved for two similar machines, to get the flexibility of using one or the other to perform shot peening on a given part?

Thanks!

Even if the machines were identical you would still have to run a saturation curve for each. If the same parameters work for all the machines then it would be acceptable to use one procedure. The difficult part may be for you to be able to document which machine the actual parts were processed in for any given lot.

I would think that a common technique sheet could be used if the machines are VERY similar. That just makes sense. However, you may encounter questions from an auditor if you used one machine for qualification and then were using the other machine during an audit. You might protect yourself by clearly stating in your technique sheets, and maybe other documents, that the machines may be interchanged. Something else that might help is prepare set up in one machine and run saturation curves etc and then transfer the fixtures to the other machine and run another saturation curve. Compare the results and make your own conclusions.