Experimental investigation and prediction method of fretting wear in rack-plane spline couplings

To investigate the fretting wear of involute spline couplings in aerospace, rack-plane spline couplings rather than the conventional involute spline couplings in aerospace were used to conduct tribological experiments, and it was assumed that the rack-plane spline couplings exhibit consistent contact stress with the real involute spline couplings in aerospace. The relationships among the static friction coefficient, dynamic friction coefficient, and fretting friction coefficient were established via tribological experiments, as well as the fretting-wear mechanism of the rack-plane spline couplings was examined. A fretting-wear estimation model based on the fretting-wear mechanism was developed. By applying the modified Archard equation and Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian adaptive, mesh smoothing algorithm of Abacus was used. According to our experimental results, the fretting wear of the rack-plane spline couplings consisted primarily of abrasive wear, oxidative wear, and adhesive wear. For both, lubrication and non-lubrication settings, the fretting friction coefficient of 18CrNi4A steel (0.27) fluctuated between 0.12 (dynamic friction coefficient) and 0.35 (static friction coefficient). The fretting-wear results estimated via numerical prediction were consistent with the experimental results. When s_m (vibration amplitude) was 20, 35, and 50 µm, the most difference in the fretting wear between the experimental results and numerical estimation was 0.001, 0.0007, and 0.001 mm, respectively. Therefore, the proposed model provides a method for accurate estimation of the fretting-wear. Additionally, the model contributes to the precise design of involute spline couplings in aerospace.