The phenomenon of fretting fatigue that occurs in component joints is currently a major challenge in the service life assessment of components. The reason for this is a tribological stress component in the contact joint of the components, which prevails in addition to the obligatory fatigue stress. Depending on the material and the tribological parameters, the fretting fatigue strength can be less than 20% of the pure material strength. As a result, components subjected to fretting fatigue stress that were designed on the basis of established strength parameters may fail unexpectedly early. Depending on the area of application, this can result in severe damage, for example.
In order to counter the problem described, a calculation method for taking into account the fretting fatigue of aluminium and cast-iron contacts was developed at IKAT over several years of research work. This is based on local stresses, which enables the calculation of any component geometry. The fretting related drop in strength is taken into account by empirically determined fretting factors. Implementing these factors in the proven standard work of the FKM guideline allows the research results to be utilised in a user-friendly manner.
The research results have been published in the renowned journal „International Journal of Fatigue“ and are now available online (DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2024.108).