Shot blasting consists of attacking the surface of a material with one of many types of shots. Normally this is done to remove something on the surface such as scale, but it is also done sometimes to impart a particular surface to the object being shot blasted, such as the rolls used to make a 2D finish. The shot can be sand, small steel balls of various diameters, granules of silicon carbide, etc. The device that throws the shot is either a large air gun or spinning paddles which hurl the shot off their blades.
Shot peening is a cold working process used to produce a compressive residual stress layer and modify mechanical properties of metals. It entails impacting a surface with shot (round metallic, glass, or ceramic particles) with force sufficient to create plastic deformation.
It is similar to sandblasting, except that it operates by the mechanism of plasticity rather than abrasion: each particle functions as a ball-peen hammer. In practice, this means that less material is removed by the process, and less dust created.
