Finite element analysis of fretting crack propagation

TL;DR

This paper employs finite element analysis to study fretting crack growth, validating the method against known solutions and exploring key parameters affecting crack propagation.

Contribution

It develops and validates a FEM-based approach for analyzing fretting crack growth, including effects of crack angle and friction.

Findings

FEM accurately predicts crack arrest length.

FEM can extract stress intensity factors in mixed mode.

Key parameters influence crack growth behavior.

Abstract

In this work, the finite elements method (FEM) is used to analyse the growth of fretting cracks. FEM can be favourably used to extract the stress intensity factors in mixed mode, a typical situation for cracks growing in the vicinity of a fretting contact. The present study is limited to straight cracks which is a simple system chosen to develop and validate the FEM analysis. The FEM model is tested and validated against popular weight functions for straight cracks perpendicular to the surface. The model is then used to study fretting crack growth and understand the effect of key parameters such as the crack angle and the friction between crack faces. Predictions achieved by this analysis match the essential features of former experimental fretting results, in particular the average crack arrest length can be predicted accurately.