Analysis of Critical Stress for Subsurface Rolling Contact Fatigue Damage Assessment Under Roll/Slide Contact

Abstract

As one of the main failure modes of component operated under rolling contact loading, the rolling contact fatigue is classified into two types: subsurface initiated and surface initiated. Different stresses such as orthogonal shear stress, maximum principle shear stress, and octahedral shear stress have been applied as the critical stresses for the assessment of the subsurface cracks’ initiation due to rolling contact fatigue. The influences of friction on distributions of the ranges of orthogonal shear stress, maximum principle shear stress, and octahedral shear stress in subsurface were analyzed with reference to the results of the reference articles. The results show that friction does influence the subsurface distributions of these stresses to a certain extent. However, the upper limits of both the maximum principle shear stress and octahedral shear stress are smaller than that of range of orthogonal shear stresses under the rolling contact conditions of usual steel components. Hence, it is more appropriate that the orthogonal shear stress be selected as the critical stress for the assessment of subsurface rolling contact fatigue.