Bending Fretting Fatigue Characteristics of 18CrNiMo7-6 Alloy Steel

A series of bending fretting fatigue tests of 18CrNiMo7-6 alloy steel were carried out, the bending fretting fatigue S-N curve was built up, and an analysis was made on the test results. The results show that, the S-N curve of 18CrNiMo7-6 alloy steel presents a shape of "ε" curve, which is different from the medium carbon steel, and also different from the plain bending fatigue. With the increase of the bending fatigue stress, the fretting regime transforms from partial slip regime to mixed regime and slip regime. The wear mechanisms of fretting damage zones mainly are delaminated, abrasive wear and oxidative wear. In the mixed regime, the cracks are easy to initiate and propagate, and the cracks all originate from the subsurface of contact zone. Due to the different influence levels of the contact stress and bending fatigue stress, the initiation and propagation of the bending fretting fatigue cracks can be divided into three stages. Firstly, the cracks initiate from subsurface under the control of contact stress; then propagate to a larger angle direction under the joint control of contact stress and bending fatigue stress; lastly the cracks propagate vertically to contact surface until fracture failure under the control of bending fatigue stress.