On the use of the theory of critical distances with mesh control for fretting fatigue life assessment in complete and nearly complete contacts

Abstract

In this work, the theory of critical distances using point method and mesh control approach for fretting fatigue life prediction in complete and nearly complete contacts is analysed. The approach is applied to thirty experimental tests found in the literature, where almost nine hundred simulations are carried out. The work concludes that the theory of critical distances using mesh control is able to predict the fretting fatigue strength of components using an optimum mesh size of 1.6 times the critical distance for all contact configurations analysed. Due to the use of an element size of around the critical distance length, the computational cost can be reduced up to 98% in comparison with the traditional theory of critical distances.