On the fly laser shock peening

Claim 1

An on the fly method of laser shock peening a gas turbine engine part, said method comprising the following steps: painting a portion of the part with a paint material suitable to generate a plasma which results in shock waves, continuously moving a metallic gas turbine engine part while continuously firing a stationary laser beam, which repeatably pulses between relatively constant periods on the portion of the part, using the laser beam with sufficient power to vaporize the paint material on a laser shock peened surface of the portion of the part with the pulses around laser beam spots formed by the laser beam on the surface to form a region having deep compressive residual stresses extending into the part from the laser shock peened surface, flowing a curtain of water over the surface upon which the laser beam is firing while moving the part until the laser shock peened surface is completely covered by the laser beam spots at least once, the part is moved and the laser beam is fired to produce more than one row of overlapping circular laser beam spots having generally equally spaced apart linearly aligned center points wherein adjacent rows of spots overlap, and the laser shock peened surface is laser shock peened using a set of sequences wherein each sequence comprises the painting of the surface such that the material on the surface is a paint suitable to generate a plasma which results in shock waves to form the region having deep compressive residual stresses and then continuously moving the part while continuously firing a stationary laser beam on the surface such that the adjacent laser shock peened circular spots are hit in different ones of said sequences in said set.