SIMULATION OF FATIGUE CRACK PROPAGATION UNDER CONTACT LOADING CONDITIONS

Abstract eng:
The article is a contribution to numerical simulations of pitting arise phenomena on the gear teeth. The basic assumption of the presented simulations was that pitting (pits) is a result of fatigue crack propagation under (rolling) contact loading conditions. The solution approach consisted of numerical simulations of fatigue cracks growth in the FEM framework and a comparison of numerical and experimental results. An acceptable agreement of the numerical and experimental results confirms (not proves) that fatigue crack propagation can present a true damage mechanism of the pitting wear rise. A theoretical basis of the presented simulations is an approximation of fatigue crack growth description by the so called Paris law in conjunction with FEA of crack tip loading conditions and fracture criteria evaluation. This allows, at the given crack geometry and loading amplitude in each simulated loading cycle, to estimate the crack growth rate and extension increment direction, and to model its increment by which the crack was lengthened in the following simulation. The simulations were performed under the ABAQUS CAE FEM programme which enables to create in-house codes using the Python scripting language and which is the basis of all FEA including the simulation of the crack growth.

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