Issue 72

A. Zanichelli et alii, Fracture and Structural Integrity, 72 (2025) 225-235; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.72.16

(defined with respect to the perpendicular to the contact surface) was found to range between 18° and 32°, for the first few hundred microns. Then, the main crack further propagated almost perpendicular to the surface.

R [mm]

P [N/mm]

Q a [N/mm]

N f,exp [cycles]

N f,cal [cycles] 2.37E+06 1.23E+06 8.05E+05 6.00E+05 4.80E+05 5.56E+06 3.47E+06 1.79E+06 1.18E+06 8.84E+05 7.05E+05 1.25E+06 8.83E+05 7.05E+05 2.79E+06

Group No.

Test No.

 B,a [MPa]

1

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9

50 75

93

42 63 84

92.7

1.29E+06 6.70E+05 8.50E+05 7.30E+05 6.70E+05 4.04E+06 1.50E+06 8.00E+05 6.10E+05 1.24E+06 6.90E+05 1.42E+06 6.10E+05 1.24E+06 1.57E+06 1.23E+06

140 186 233 280

100 125 150 37.5

105 126

2

58 77

26 35 52 70 87 52 70 87 61 74

92.7

50 75

116 155 193 232 116 155 193 136 163

100 125 150 100 125 125 150 75

T10 T11 T12 T13 T14 T15 T16

104

3

77.2

4

61.8

2.30E+06 Table 2: Radius of the pads, R ; constant normal load, P ; amplitude of the alternating cyclic tangential load, Q a ; amplitude of the alternating cyclic axial stress,  B,a ; and experimental fatigue life, N f,exp , of each test analysed [21]. The analytically calculated fatigue life, N f,cal , is also reported.

E XPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF THE ANALYTICAL METHODOLOGY

T

he analytical methodology for fretting fatigue described above is employed to simulate the experimental tests [21] related to Al-4Cu specimens, and the results obtained in terms of fatigue life and crack nucleation orientation are reported and discussed in the present Section. Relatively to the fatigue life, the values calculated through the methodology, N f,cal , are listed in Tab. 2 for each tested specimen. Moreover, such results are compared to the corresponding experimental findings in Fig. 1 (scatter band 2 is indicated with dashed lines), for each specimen group separately. Satisfactory estimations are obtained, as confirmed by the fact that 14 cases (over 16) fall within the scatter band 2. In addition, the accuracy of the present methodology is quantified by computing the value of the root mean square error, T RMS (please refer to Ref. [25] for the T RMS computation), which is equal to 1.66. Relatively to the crack nucleation orientation, the values computed by means of the present methodology for each test considered are listed in Tab. 3. Note that such values are obtained by assuming the hot-spot, H , located where the highest value of the average maximum principal stress occurs on the contact surface, that is, at contact edge. Further, it is important to stress that these values (ranging from 6° to 11°) are related to a length of 100  m, that is, 2 d . Accordingly, they should be compared to the first part of the experimental crack paths, where the orientation ranges from 18° to 32°. Therefore, it can be stated that, although the orientation of the crack is predicted towards the centre of the contact zone in agreement with the experimental observations, the present methodology underestimates the real value of the crack nucleation orientation.

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