The effect of surface regular microtopography on fretting fatigue life

The possibility of increasing fretting fatigue life of a tribo-pair by laser surface texturing technology is studied. An appropriate experimental fretting fatigue device is used to conduct comparative experiments with a cylinder-on-flat type of contact. A relatively small number of long fretting fatigue experiments under seemingly partial slip condition are described and analyzed. From these preliminary tests, it is found that regular micropores created by laser texturing in the fretted zone on the cylinder almost double the fretting fatigue life compared to a common non-textured fretting zone. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.