Fretting fatigue failure mechanism of automotive shock absorber valve

Abstract Fretting fatigue is a complex mechanical failure phenomenon, in which two contact surfaces undergo a small relative oscillatory motion due to cyclic loading. This study proposes a methodology to analyze the fretting fatigue failure mechanism of automotive shock absorber valve by means of experimental and numerical approaches. A servo hydraulic test set-up is used to simulate fretting fatigue under real working conditions. Moreover, a 3-D finite element model is developed to analyze the contact status and stress distribution at contact interface between connected components, i.e. washer-disc contact. The experimental test results depict that fretting damage appears at contact interface between washer and disc, which causes the initial crack nucleation and advancing the crack up to the final fracture of valve disc. Stress field, obtained by numerical simulation, is used to monitor some fretting fatigue features such as the distribution of relative slip amplitude, contact pressure and different stress fields at contact interfaces. Eventually, the crack initiation site is estimated by monitoring variation of equivalent multiaxial damage stress at contact interface.