Application of influence function method on the fretting wear of tube-to-plate contact

The structural integrity of steam generators in nuclear power plants is much dependent on the fretting wear characteristics of Inconel 690 U-tubes. The influence function method for the tube-to-plate contact model is demonstrated in this study to investigate the fretting wear problems on the secondary side of the steam generator, which are caused by flow induced vibrations between the U-tubes and supports. Two-dimensional numerical contact model is developed and formulated in terms of the Cauchy singular integral equation. The distributions of normal pressures, shear stresses and displacement fields are derived between two contact bodies which have similar elastic properties. Based on the algorithms for normal pressures and relative slip, a numerical approach is developed to simulate the fretting wear of tube-to-plate contacts. The work rate model is adopted in this study to find the wear amounts between two materials. The results are compared with the solutions by finite element analyses to validate the application of the present method to fretting wear problems.