Analysis of pad size effects in fretting fatigue using short crack arrest methodologies

Abstract

A series of fretting fatigue experiments are described in which the fatigue life is found to vary with contact size. There exists a critical contact size, where fatigue lives are longer than 10 7 cycles. Short crack methodologies based on the Kitagawa–Takahashi diagram are developed and used to predict the critical contact size in the experiments. Good agreement is found between experimental and predicted results. A discussion regarding the appropriate fundamental material parameters for cases where the stress field is non-uniform is also undertaken.