Experimental and numerical investigation into effect of elevated temperature on fretting fatigue behavior

Abstract

t Fretting fatigue damage occurs in contacting parts when they are subjected to fluctuating loadingsand sliding movements at the same time. This phenomenon may occur in many applications such asbearings/ shafts, bolted and riveted connections, steel cables, and steam and gas turbines. In this paper,the effect of elevated temperature on fretting fatigue life of Al7075-T6 is investigated using a new device forfretting fatigue tests with variable crank shaft mechanism. Also a finite element modeling method was usedto estimate crack propagation lifetime in aluminum alloy, Al7075-T6 specimens at elevated temperatureunder fretting condition. In this method, shear and normal stresses that are caused by contact load areupdated at each crack growth increment. Finally, a comparison between the experimental and numericalresults is done in order to evaluate the FE simulation.Department of mechanical engineering, Islamic Azad University, Takestan Branch, Takestan, IranThe experimental results show that: (i) fretting fatigue life of the material increases with temperature up to350°C by 180% for low stresses and decreases by 40% for high stresses, (ii) this fashion of variation offretting fatigue life versus temperature is believed to be due to degradation of material properties whichoccurs by overaging and wear resistance increase due to oxidation of aluminum alloy. While overaginggives rise to degradation of mechanical strength of material and hence the reduction of its fretting fatiguelife, surface oxidation of the specimens brings some improvement of fatigue behavior of the material.Metallurgical examination of the specimens reveals that temperature results in precipitation of impurities ofal-7075-T6. The size of precipitated impurities and their distances gets bigger as temperature increases.This could be a reason for material degradation of specimens which are exposed to heating for longer timeduration.