Influence of wear damage on the fretting fatigue life prediction of an Al7175 alloy

This paper proposes a modification on both the Smith–Watson–Topper and the Morrow parameters concerning the prediction on fretting fatigue life, in order to take into account the wear damage. It is proposed that, besides the principal stresses involved in fretting contact (axial, normal and tangential stresses), a new parameter that is the stress concentration factor, Kt, due to the “fretting scar effect”, should be taken into consideration. It is demonstrated that more accurate results are obtained if Kt is used. The modified Morrow parameter has shown to provide good fretting fatigue life predictions, but more accurate predictions have been obtained with the SWT parameter.