An Elastoplastic Finite Element Study of Displacement-Controlled Fretting in a Plane-Strain Cylindrical Contact

This work presents a finite element study of a two-dimensional (2D) plane strain fretting model of a half cylinder in contact with a flat block under oscillatory tangential loading. The two bodies are deformable and are set to the same material properties (specifically steel), however, because the results are normalized, they can characterize a range of contact scales (micro to macro), and are applicable for ductile material pairs that behave in an elastic-perfectly plastic manner. Different coefficients of friction (COFs) are used in the interface. This work finds that the edges of the contacting areas experience large von Mises stresses along with significant residual plastic strains, while pileup could also appear there when the COFs are sufficiently large. In addition, junction growth is investigated, showing a magnitude that increases with the COF, while the rate of growth stabilization decreases with the COF. The fretting loop (caused by the tangential force during the fretting motion) for the initial few cycles of loading is generated, and it compares well with reported experimental results. The effects of boundary conditions are also discussed where a prestressed compressed block is found to improve (i.e., reduce) the magnitude of the plastic strain compared to an unstressed block.