Some observations on frictional force during fretting fatigue

Frictional force behavior during fretting fatigue and its interdependence on other fretting variables are investigated. Both coefficient of static friction and the normalized frictional force (i.e., the ratio of frictional force and normal contact load) increase during the earlier part of a fretting fatigue test and then both reach to a stabilized value. The variation of temperature in the contact region and normalized frictional force with increasing cycle numbers and bulk stress show similar trend implying that normalized frictional force represents the average friction in the contact region during a fretting fatigue. An increase in bulk stress, relative slip, and hardness of pad material results in an increase of the normalized frictional force, while an increase in contact load, frequency and temperature decreases the normalized frictional force. The normalized frictional force is also affected by the contact geometry. On the other hand, coefficient of static friction increases with an increase in the hardness of mating material, temperature and roughness from shot-peening treatment, but is not affected by contact geometry and displacement rate. Further, the normalized frictional force is not affected by the contact geometry, roughness and applied bulk stress level when fretting fatigue test is conducted under slip controlled mode, however it increases with increasing applied relative slip and decreasing contact load in this case.