Variable Damping Profiles Using Modal Analysis for Laser Shock Peening Simulation

The single explicit analysis using time-dependent damping (SEATD) technique for laser shock peening (LSP) simulation employs variable damping to relax the excited model between laser shots, thus distinguishing it from conventional optimum constant damping methods. Dynamic relaxation (DR) is the well-established conventional technique that mathematically identifies the optimum constant damping coefficient and incremental time-step that guarantees stability and convergence while damping all mode shapes uniformly when bringing a model to quasi-static equilibrium. Examined in this research is a new systematic procedure to strive for a more effective, time-dependent variable damping profile for general LSP configurations and boundary conditions, based on excited modal parameters of a given laser-shocked system. The effects of increasing the number of mode shapes and selecting modes by contributed effective masses are studied, and a procedure to identify the most efficient variable damping profile is designed. Two different simulation cases are studied. It is found that the computational time is reduced by up to 25% (62.5 min) for just five laser shots using the presented variable damping method versus conventional optimum constant damping. Since LSP typically involved hundreds of shots, the accumulated savings in computation time during prediction of desired process parameters is significant.