Some observations on contact problems involving fretting in the presence of wear

The problem studied is the distribution of the steady-state contact pressur e after fretting has taken place. It is assumed that fretting gives rise to wear, and it is shown that for a flat-ended indenter, there is no partial slip steady-state solution, either for the case of no-wear, or when wear ha s occurred. There must therefore be a continuously evolving pressure distri bution. For the case of a Hertzian indenter, it is shown that if the wear d ebris is no larger than the parent metal, no true steady-state of constant pressure within the slip zones can exist. Only very slight amounts of wear are therefore likely to occur with this geometry. (C) 1999 Published by Els evier Science S.A. All rights reserved.