Fretting

For fretting in music, see fret.

Fretting refers to wear and sometimes corrosion damage at the asperities of contact surfaces. This damage is induced under load and in the presence of repeated relative surface motion, as induced for example by vibration. The ASM Handbook on Fatigue and Fracture defines fretting as: "A special wear process that occurs at the contact area between two materials under load and subject to minute relative motion by vibration or some other force."

The amplitude of the relative sliding motion is often in the order from micrometers to millimeters, but can be as low as 3 to 4 nanometers.

The contact movement causes mechanical wear and material transfer at the surface, often followed by oxidation of both the metallic debris and the freshly exposed metallic surfaces. Because the oxidized debris is usually much harder than the surfaces from which it came, it often acts as an abrasive agent that increases the rate of both fretting and a mechanical wear called false brinelling.

Steel

Fretting damage in steel can be identified by the presence of rust (iron oxide powder) and by the rough, torn appearance of the pitted surface. The rust particles are much harder than the steel surfaces in contact, so abrasive wear is inevitable.

Products affected

Fretting examples include wear of drive splines on driveshafts, wheels at the lug bolt interface, and cylinder head gaskets subject to differentials in thermal expansion coefficients.

There is a current focus on fretting research in the aerospace industry. The dovetail blade-root connection and the spline coupling of gas turbine aero engines experience fretting.

Fretting fatigue

Fretting decreases fatigue strength of materials operating under cycling stress. This can result in fretting fatigue, whereby fatigue cracks can initiate in the fretting zone. Afterwards, the crack propagates into the material. Lap joints, common on airframe surfaces, are a prime location for fretting corrosion.

Mitigation

The fundamental way to prevent fretting is to design for no relative motion of the surfaces at the contact. Surface finish plays an important role as fretting normally occurs by the contact of the asperities of the mating surfaces. Lubricants are often employed to mitigate fretting because they reduce friction and inhibit oxidation.

Soft materials often exhibit higher susceptibility to fretting than hard materials of a similar type. The hardness ratio of the two sliding materials also has an effect on fretting wear. However, softer materials such as polymers can show the opposite effect when they capture hard debris which becomes embedded in their bearing surfaces. They then act as a very effective abrasive agent, wearing down the harder metal with which they are in contact.

See also

• Tribology
• MTCI
• Wear

External links

• EPI inc article