Fracture mechanics approach to fretting fatigue and problems to be solved

A large number of research works have been devoted to fretting fatigue from both mechanical and metallurgical viewpoints. In the present paper, fracture mechanical approaches for evaluating fretting fatigue life and strength have been briefly reviewed. Furthermore, a new approach based on a singular stress field near the contact edge and on fracture mechanics has been proposed. The directions of crack initiation and propagation as well as fretting fatigue life, which have coincided with the experimental results, could be estimated according to the new approach, in which singular stress near the contact edge and mixed mode crack growth have been taken into consideration. In the application of the new method to predict the fretting fatigue behavior, there are still several problems to be clarified, which have also been discussed in detail. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.