Manufacturing Aspects of the StressWave™ Cold Working Process

The patented StressWave cold working process improves the fatigue lives of holes in metal structure by locally treating the metal prior to machining the hole. This important feature, as well as other aspects of the process, offers a number of advantages for manufacturing fatigue-resistant components and assembled structure. Existing manufacturing and assembly equipment can be retrofitted to accommodate various StressWave adaptive devices. These adaptive devices can be actively or passively controlled, work effectively over a wide range of processing speeds and production rates, and can be controlled to adjust for varying thickness of the part or assembly. The flexibility of the StressWave cold working process allows it to be used upstream of final assembly allowing order of magnitude cost reductions when compared to mandrel cold working methods.