Development of a Sliding-Rolling Contact Fatigue Tester

Abstract

Abstract Contact fatigue failure is a common problem experienced in many applications such as bearings, gears, and railway tracks. In recent years, research companies have developed finishing processes that aim to improve components’ contact fatigue life. Preliminary rolling contact fatigue tests have shown that superfinishing processes could potentially improve a component’s contact fatigue life by 300 %. However, before these technologies can move from the laboratories to industrial platforms, more tests are needed to verify the claim. The objective of the work herein is to discuss the completion and verification of a sliding-rolling contact fatigue (S-RCF) test rig. This project is funded by the U.S. Army to assess the real benefit of superfinishing on the contact fatigue life of gears used in helicopter transmission boxes. The proposed tester design uses three rollers around a specimen, a hydraulic loading mechanism, and two servo motors. This configuration of the S-RCF tester allows for shorter testing time, more flexible testing parameters such as any combination of slide-roll ratio between the surfaces, any operating speed, and dry or lubricated testing conditions. Failure is detected with a state-of-the-art eddy current crack detection system, which can also be used to monitor and investigate crack growth for different materials, levels of superfinish, and operating conditions. Preliminary tests on a common gear material (AISI 8620 steel) were performed to assess the mechanical limits as well as the control software performance. This paper presents the detailed development and validation of the tester. It discusses issues involved with servo controllers, electronic gear ratio, and their ability to provide precise speed and slip ratios.