The fretting wear of mild steel from room temperature to 200°C

This paper investigates in detail the fretting wear behaviour of mild steel from room temperature to 200°C. Contact resistance measurements and the scanning electron microscope have been used to interpret the wear mechanism in relation to the observed progress of different wear scar parameters. The fretting apparatus used was specially constructed for elevated temperature work, the wear area concentrated in the form of an annulus. It is found that in the fretting of mild steel, there is an initial stage of adhesion followed by a conditioning period before adhesion zones undergo deterioration and dispersal to form eventual oxide debris. The different stages in this mechanism are dealt with in detail. It is found that with mild steel the fretting damage decreases with increase of temperature in the range considered and reaches a constant value at 200°C, the transition temperature. The possibility of abrasive wear as an influencing factor in fretting is also examined but microfatigue is found to be by far the more important process during the steady state.