Numerical investigation on fretting wear in steel wires by introducing system stiffness and dissipated friction energy

In the mining hoisting system, the reliability of wire ropes has a significant influence on the safety of the entire system. Subjected to coupled alternating stresses and small cyclic motions, fretting wear occurs in the internal steel ropes, leading to fatigue damage and reduced service life. Studying fretting behaviour through experiments is economically costly and cumbersome. This study numerically investigated the effects of system tangential stiffness (Ks), Crossing Angle (CA), and contact load (P) on fretting contact and wear behaviours of steel wires. Firstly, the fretting wear model for contact wires was established based on Archard’s wear model, and the accuracy of the model was compared with the published literature. Then, the fretting characteristics, such as wear morphology, relative slip amplitude (δ_a), and hysteresis loop, were investigated, and the action mechanism on wear depth was analysed. Finally, a more streamlined approach was proposed to predict wear depth by using dissipated friction energy. The results show that with an increase in the number of cycles, the relative slip amplitude gradually decreases, and non-Coulomb friction behaviour intensifies. The wear depth is influenced by the crossing angle and system stiffness mainly through the contact pressure and relative slip amplitude. Specifically, larger crossing angles and system stiffness result in more severe wear. An increase in contact load lead to a competition between contact pressure and relative slip, resulting in the initially increasing and then decreasing of wear depth. The effective dissipated friction energy, for the first time, was employed in wear prediction of steel wires. Compared to Archard's model, the prediction accuracy of the proposed model improves with the increasing system stiffness and the decreasing contact load. The proposed method offers a practical tool for wear prediction of steel wires, greatly enhancing the efficiency of wear calculations.