A hybrid analytical-FEM 3D approach including wear effects to simulate fretting fatigue endurance: Application to steel wires in crossed contact

Fretting fatigue causes failures in steel wire ropes. A crossed wires set-up was used to investigate the influence of displacement amplitude on fretting fatigue damage. The analysis confirms previous literature results, showing a beneficial effect of wear in gross slip regime, which extends the contact area and thus decreases the contact stresses. The computation of such combined cracking and wear processes is very expensive using a classical FEM strategy, particularly for 3D contact geometries. To palliate such limitations, a hybrid analytical-numerical strategy was developped. It consists in estimating pressure and shear stress surface fields using analytical for-mulations, then to transpose these fields to an FEM model. This allows to simulate contact geometry modifi-cations in a fast and efficient way.

Automated summary

This study investigates the effects of displacement amplitude on fretting fatigue damage using a crossed wires set-up. The results confirm the beneficial effect of wear in the gross slip regime, which reduces contact stresses by extending the contact area. To overcome the computational limitations of using a classical FEM strategy, a hybrid analytical-numerical strategy is developed to efficiently simulate contact geometry modifications.