Prototype fretting-wear testing machine and some experimental results

A new prototype fretting-wear testing machine is developed, and its performance is evaluated. In this testing machine, a spherical specimen is oscillated by a lead-zirconate-titanate semiconductor (PZT) actuator, driven by means of computer control. Thus, an arbitrary input waveform, such as sinusoidal wave, triangular wave and so on, can be easily operated to a spherical specimen. This is the special feature of our testing machine. As an example, a fretting experiment is carried out, using a steel flat specimen and a bearing steel sphere specimen. A sinusoidal input wave is added by a PZT actuator. It is clarified that there is a boundary fretting amplitude, beyond which fretting wear mass or volume increases abruptly. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.