A combined BEM/Contact Asymptotics (BEM-CA) semi-analytical formulation for the assessment of fretting damage in bolted joints

This paper is concerned with the study of bolted joints undergoing fretting damage. The analysis has been prompted by an investigation into failures of wheel-hub assemblies in earth moving equipment. In such applications, premature failures of the wheels initiating at the wheel-hub connection is observed in service. Fretting fatigue and wear induced by flexural loading at the wheel-hub bolted joints are often deemed to be responsible for damage initiation and crack propagation. Ad hoc analytical formulations have been developed and implemented by the authors in order to capture the mechanisms which govern these phenomena. In this article we present a semi-analytical boundary element modelling technique, which combined with contact asymptotic techniques (BEM/CA) can be employed to assess the strength of bolted connections subjected to flexural loadings.