The effect of fretting and environment on fatigue crack initiation and early propagation in a quenched and tempered 4130 Steel

Fretting fatigue studies were performed on quenched and tempered 4130 steel in laboratory air and in argon as functions of relative slip displacement, normal pressure and applied cyclic stress. Significant reductions in fatigue resistance were observed at all stress levels and increased with increasing normal pressures. However, a minimum in resistance was observed for relative slip magnitudes of 20 to 30 μm. Inert environments improve fatigue resistance under fretting conditions. Metallographic observations indicated that subsurface cracking was generally observed and that stress concentrations associated with this cracking resulted in deviations to and away from the faying surfaces. Fretting cracks which deviated into the alloy become initiated fatigue cracks. A mechanical model is proposed for fretting induced fatigue crack initiation which suggests that this phenomenon is a simple extension of the basic fretting process.