AN ANALYSIS OF FRETTING-FATIGUE FAILURE COMBINED WITH NUMERICAL-CALCULATIONS TO PREDICT CRACK NUCLEATION

In order to better understand the problem of fretting-fatigue of compo nents, a testing methodology to derive fretting-fatigue maps was devel oped and successfully established on a high strength steel under dry c ontact (cylinder pads against a flat specimen). These achievements hav e shed a new light on the interpretation of fretting-fatigue data and their transposition to industrial applications with the understanding of the accommodation mechanisms. As long as the fatigue resistance of a structural component is concerned, the crack nucleation and propagat ion regime is the most dangerous one. There is a need for quantitative guidelines to predict this regime. An approach using an elastoplastic finite element analysis with contact elements was undertaken for this purpose. This paper deals with this approach to simulate the mechanic al contact conditions as evidenced by fretting-fatigue maps and descri bes how it handles Dang Van criterion to predict the failure of the sp ecimens. The calculation results are in good agreement with the experi mental fretting-fatigue maps.