Fretting fatigue behavior and life prediction of automotive steel bolted joint

Fatigue tests of bolted joints of SAPH400 automotive steel plate were carried out. Effect of groove on fretting fatigue strength was investigated by introducing various geometries of grooves at contact edge. The fretting fatigue strength was improved by introducing groove: the fatigue strength increased with increasing groove depth. As the next step, the applicability of the tangential stress range–compressive stress range diagram to the bolted joints was investigated using the tangential stress range–compressive stress range diagram obtained from conventional laboratory-type SAPH400 steel specimens. The result showed that the fretting fatigue strength of actual component, i.e. the bolted joint could be successfully predicted based on the tangential stress range–compressive stress range diagram.

Research highlights
► Effect of groove at contact edge on fretting fatigue (FF) strength was studied.
► The FF strength was improved by introducing groove at contact edge.
► New method proposed to predict FF strength.
► FF strength of bolted joint was predicted using newly proposed method.