Does anyone know of a supplier for Case Hardened Steel Peening Balls?
Here is some information provide by my QA Manager at our Georgia faciliy.
Peening Technologies has been unable to identify a vendor for 1/8” burnishing ball media meeting the requirements of AMS 2431/5. The primary areas of discrepancy lie in the hardness requirement of 57-62 HRc, most manufacturers are heat treating their product to a 60 HRc minimum which would give a hardness range of roughly 60-65 HRc. The other primary deficiency is in the area of case hardness where the requirement is .025-.030” (min.-max.). Typically what I am finding is that ball manufacturers are case hardening to a depth of .025-.040” and in some cases may exceed this maximum as well. I did not fully investigate the case hardness testing methods required by AMS for this product but do believe that this requirement also in not being met as this is not a requirement for the typical application of this product. In-so-far as the carbon content is concerned AMS 2341/5 states that the product ‘composition shall conform to AISI 1022 or similar steels of lower carbon content’. This requirement can be met through the usage of several AISI numbers from roughly 1005 to 1025 (Reference MIL-S-11310E, table 1) although AISI 1022 would be optimum due to the higher manganese content. I do not believe that using a product not in compliance with AMS 2431/5 would be detrimental to the peening of your product as long as there is strict adherence to the requirement for broken media and sizing of the product.
