Mechanics of fretting fatigue

Several aspects of the mechanics of cracks originating at sites of fretting are considered. It is argued that the problem may be distilled into three separate parts: the contact problem itself in full or partial slip, the initiation of a crack from a surface suffering severe distress, and the propagation of a crack under combined contact and bulk loading. The first of these may be solved by either a classical or numerical means, whilst the last merely requires the careful use of fracture mechanics. However, it is the second element which remains elusive to quantify, and the influence of the intrinsic length scales in the problem, including contact length, surface roughness and amplitude of relative tangential displacement on initiation conditions, is discussed and explored.