Media Inspection

Author:  Jack Champaigne, Editor
Source:  The Shot Peener magazine, Vol 34, Issue 2, Spring 2020
Doc ID:  2020013
Year of Publication:  2020
Abstract:  
I remember trying to understand the requirements for media inspections and quality control in my early days in the blast cleaning and shot peening marketplace. One issue was the allowance of 10% of smallest screen size media (in the pan) for new media but the in-use media allowed 20%. My experience in the field revealed that the in-use media seldom had more than 5% in the pan. After several years of involvement with SAE, I considered that the committee participation by large numbers of media manufactures helped to write the specs and they wanted their media to broadly qualify. In those early days of shot blasting, the on-board media screens were not required thus the 20% broken content was needed. As more rigorous specifications evolved and demanded the on-board screens, the in-use media became much better than the new media. During early impacts of new media, the “weaker” particles would break and were discarded. The process actually improved the media as it was used. Unfortunately, the specs were never tightened to take advantage of this phenomena.