With the rapid development of the advanced manufacturing industry, equipment requirements are becoming increasingly stringent. Since metallic materials often present failure problems resulting from wear due to extreme service conditions, researchers have developed various methods to improve their properties. Laser shock peening (LSP) is a highly efficacious mechanical surface modification technique utilized to enhance the microstructure of the near-surface layer of metallic materials, which improves mechanical properties such as wear resistance and solves failure problems. In this work, we summarize the fundamental principles of LSP and laser-induced plasma shock waves, along with the development of this technique. In addition, exemplary cases of LSP treatment used for wear resistance improvement in metallic materials of various nature, including conventional metallic materials, laser additively manufactured parts, and laser cladding coatings, are outlined in detail. We further discuss the mechanism by which the microhardness enhancement, grain refinement, and beneficial residual stress are imparted to metallic materials by using LSP treatment, resulting in a significant improvement in wear resistance. This work serves as an important reference for researchers to further explore the fundamentals and the metallic material wear resistance enhancement mechanism of LSP.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is an efficient method to fabricate components with complex geometries. However, high levels of tensile residual stress generated in the near-surface layer of the fabricated components due to the high cooling rate and large thermal gradients during the AM process have limited their applications. Laser shock processing (LSP) is a novel surface-strengthening technique applied to modify the near-surface of metallic materials with the purpose of improving mechanical properties such as microhardness, residual stress, wear resistance, and fatigue performance. There are more and more investigations to report the combining manufacturing process of metallic alloys through AM and LSP. In this perspective, the fundamental mechanisms of AM and LSP were summarized in detail. The combining manufacturing process with LSP and AM was introduced from the aspect of residual stress, microhardness, fatigue performance, wear resistance, and microstructure evolution. Also, the microstructure-property relationship was discussed to explain the strengthening mechanism of AMed components by LSP. This work has important reference value and guidance significance for researchers to widespread the accepted LSP as a postprocessing method in the fields of AM.