Effect of contact geometry on fretting fatigue life of aluminium alloy 2024-T3

331-336The effect of contact geometry on fretting fatigue life was investigated by experiments and numerical simulation. The experiments were conducted for flat and cylindrical pads under the same contact normal force. The post-test examinations including crack growth measurements and fractography were carried out using optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Numerical simulations of pad-specimen assembly with and without crack were performed using a finite element (FE) analysis. The experimental study revealed that the rate of crack growth was higher at the early stages of fretting fatigue for cylindrical pads. This stage corresponds to a higher KII for cylindrical contact model. After this stage, the effects of friction force and KII decrease and the effects of tensile stress and KI become more significant. The experimental results also showed that fatigue life of AA2024 reduced by nearly 75% under fretting fatigue condition. However, the reduction for cylindrical contact geometry was more than that measured for flat contact model. The numerical results indicated that the maximum shear, tensile, and Von-Mises stresses which are thought to be the origin for initiation and growth of crack, occur at the trailing edge of the contact surface for flat and cylindrical pads. SEM examination confirmed that the crack initiated from the points of stress maxima