Two-Dimensional and Three-Dimensional Finite Element Analysis of Finite Contact Width on Fretting Fatigue

Three-dimensional effects of finite contact width fretting fatigue were investigated using the combination of full three-dimensional finite element model and two-dimensional plane strain finite element model, named as a hybrid layer method. Free edge boundary effect in finite contact width fretting fatigue problem required full three-dimensional finite element analysis to obtain accurate stress state and relative displacement in contact zone. To save the computational cost with sufficient accuracy, traction distributions obtained from coarse three-dimensional finite element analysis was applied to the two-dimensional plane strain finite element model. The key idea of this hybrid layer method was that traction distributions converged faster than the stresses. The proposed hybrid layer method predicted the free edge boundary effects of finite contact width fretting fatigue less than eight percent error bound and reduce the execution time to 5 percent of three-dimensional submodeling technique