A damage mechanics approach to fretting fatigue life prediction with consideration of elastic–plastic damage model and wear

•Wear and fatigue damage are both considered in the damage mechanics approach.•Damage-coupled elastic–plastic constitutive model is employed.•The evolutions of wear scar and fatigue damage are simulated simultaneously.•The interaction of wear and fatigue damage is investigated.•The effect of plasticity on wear and fretting fatigue life is evaluated.

In this investigation an approach to fretting fatigue life prediction is developed with consideration of damage-coupled elastic–plastic constitutive model and wear. Nonlinear kinematic hardening is employed in the analysis of elastic–plastic damage, and the total damage is divided into two parts, elastic damage and plastic damage, which are related to the cyclic stress and accumulated plastic strain, respectively. Wear is modeled by the energy wear law to simulate the evolution of contact geometry. A two dimensional plane strain finite element implementation is presented for fretting, including the case of partial slip and gross sliding. The progressive fatigue damage and wear is simulated and the results are compared with experimental data from the literature.