Comparative analysis of fretting wear behavior of steel wire subject to tensile-torsional coupling forces in typical mining environments

The complex mining environments can significantly accelerate the fretting wear among steel wires within wire rope, thereby diminishing its service life and posing severe risks to the safety of mine hoisting operations. To explore the fretting behavior of steel wires featuring complex contact structures in typical mining environments, a customized test rig was utilized to perform fretting wear experiments of steel wire under tensile-torsional coupling forces. The findings indicate that with increasing contact force, the coefficient of friction (CoF) between steel wires in different environments decreases, whereas the frictional force and wear degree increase significantly. The wear depth and wear coefficient under peak contact structure are markedly larger than those under valley contact structure. For the same contact force, the wear of steel wire without lubrication is the largest, the wear under water lubrication is the second, and the wear under grease lubrication is the least. The primary wear mechanisms of steel wire under grease lubrication are abrasive wear and fatigue wear. The presence of mineral particles in the grease can reduce the CoF, but it will exacerbate the wear and result in adhesive wear characteristics on the wear surfaces. Under no lubrication and water lubrication conditions, the wear mechanisms encompass abrasive wear, adhesive wear and fatigue wear. Furthermore, with increasing contact force, the fatigue wear of steel wire under no lubrication intensifies, while the abrasive wear characteristics become more pronounced under water lubrication.