Fretting fatigue of cast iron and aluminium – A strength assessment method based on a worst-case assumption

Many components made of cast iron (e.g., in combustion engines) and aluminium (e.g., in aircraft construction) are subject to fretting fatigue. This results in a need for a method for assessing the strengths of the aforementioned materials that takes into account the reduction in fatigue strength due to fretting as well as the accompanying reduction in service life. In a first paper, the authors already presented a calculation method for the fail-safe design of steel–steel contacts subject to fretting fatigue. This enables the engineer or designer to perform a strength assessment for any component connection made of steel. The calculation method is based on a tribological worst-case assumption and can be integrated into the analytical strength assessment of the internationally known FKM Guideline. The strength reduction is taken into account by use of empirically determined fretting factors. The frequent failures of component connections made of cast iron and aluminium in the field made an extension of the calculation method became necessary. This work therefore includes experimental investigations into the materials EN-GJS-700, EN-GJS-400 and EN-GJL-300 (cast iron), as well as EN AW-7075 T651, EN AW-6082 T651 and EN AW-5083 (aluminium). Since the main parameters determining fretting fatigue strength are slip amplitude and contact pressure, the worst-case combinations of these parameters (resulting in the lowest friction fatigue strength) were first determined for each of the two material groups using a laboratory test setup. These parameters could be found at sa=10μm;p=40MPa for cast iron and sa=5μm;p=10MPa for aluminium. Based on these worst-cases, the fretting fatigue limits of the aforementioned materials were determined, as well as the effect of mean stress. The fretting factors of the materials were derived from the experimental results. Additional experimental investigations using a connecting-rod-like geometry served to validate an application typical of the industry. Using the calculation method, the degree of utilisation of the connecting rods could be determined with good accuracy (maximum error: 18.7%).