This work provides a comprehensive review of numerical simulation and optimisation of the shot peening found in the existing literature over the past 10 years. The review found that the developed numerical models coupling finite elements with discrete elements became increasingly mature and showed their advantages in incorporating flow behaviour and randomness of shots. High emphasis must be placed on the constitutive equations of target material where its strain-rate sensitivity, cyclic behaviour and Bauschinger effects are recommended to be incorporated in the numerical material model simultaneously since considering one of them in isolation may lead to unreliable distribution of residual stresses. Furthermore, material hardening is a critical benefit of shot peening; however, it has not received its deserved attention from the existing investigations, neither in simulation nor in optimisation. The study found that intensity and coverage are two critical control parameters recommended to be constraints for optimisation of shot peening. Finally, this work also found that developed heuristic algorithms, such as genetic algorithms have recently showed their advantages for searching optimal combinations of peening parameters. It is plausible that in the near future, the synergy of combining these algorithms with approximation models can be expected to gain more attention by researchers.

In tape placement process, the laying angle and laying sequence of laminates have proven their significant effects on the mechanical properties of carbon fibre reinforced composite material, specifically, laminates. In order to optimise these process parameters, an optimisation algorithm is developed based on the principles of genetic algorithms for improving the precision of traditional genetic algorithms and resolving the premature phenomenon in the optimisation process. Taking multi-layer symmetrically laid carbon fibre laminates as the research object, this algorithm adopts binary coding to conduct the optimisation of process parameters and mechanical analysis with the laying angle as the design variable and the strength ratio R as the response variable. A case study was conducted and its results were validated by the finite element analyses. The results show that the stresses before and after optimisation are 116.0 MPa and 100.9 MPa, respectively, with a decrease of strength ratio by 13.02%. The results comparison indicates that, in the iterative process, the search range is reduced by determining the code and location of important genes, thereby reducing the computational workload by 21.03% in terms of time consumed. Through multiple calculations, it validates that “gene mutation” is an indispensable part of the genetic algorithm in the iterative process.

A bibliometric analysis of shot peening was carried out to provide insights into academic activities and trends of the research on surface treatment processes from 1997 to 2017 based on the publications collected from the database Science Citation Index. The analysis identified those countries, institutions, foundations, and journals which performed well in the research field of shot peening, and illustrated the collaborative relationships between countries and between institutions, respectively. The results suggest that the two subject categories, i.e. material science multidisciplinary and engineering mechanical, had the largest publication outputs, and that finite element modelling, ultrasonic shot peening, and parameters optimization were the current hotspots. They also indicate that the current and future research should be focused on four aspects: (1) finite element analysis with new methods such as discrete element method for modelling; (2) ultrasonic shot peening as a counterpart in modifying properties of metallic surface; (3) parametric optimization with advanced algorithms; (4) plasma nitriding as a complementary process applying after shot peening treatment.