The effect of surface pit treatment on fretting fatigue crack initiation

This paper analyses the effect of surface treatment on fretting fatigue specimen by numerical simulations using Finite Element Analysis. The processed specimen refers to artificially adding a cylindrical pit to its contact surface. Then, the contact radius between the pad and the specimen is controlled by adjusting the radius of the pit. The stress distribution and slip amplitude of the contact surface under different contact geometries are compared. The critical plane approach is used to predict the crack initiation life and to evaluate the effect of processed specimen on its fretting fatigue performance. Both crack initiation life and angle can be predicted by the critical plane approach. Ruiz parameter is used to consider the effect of contact slip. It is shown that the crack initial position is dependent on the tensile stress. For same type of model, three kinds of critical plane parameters and Ruiz method provide very similar position of crack initiation. Moreover, the improved sample is much safer than the flat-specimen.