2008 Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages 69-77
In this parameter design study, we examined the effect of a solid film lubricant coating on the contact zones of mechanical parts in preventing fretting fatigue failures, which occur frequently in the structural members of machines that experience varying loads. In conventional evaluation of the fatigue strength of materials, fatigue tests are performed at various stress levels and fatigue life is evaluated, but fatigue life evaluation takes considerable time. For the fretting fatigue strength evaluation in this study, instead of performing life tests to measure the time taken for a test piece to break under fatigue, we measured the contact force waveform affecting the contact zone in a fatigue test with up to 105 stress cycles, and evaluated stability of the waveform over the test time using the standard S/N ratio. As a result, by using an optimized solid lubricant,we improved the fatigue strength characteristic and greatly shortened the test time.
