Effect of Contact Load on the Fretting Fatigue of Steel Wire under Alkaline Corrosive Environment

The fretting fatigue tests of the mine steel wires under alkaline corrosive environment are performded on a self-made fretting fatigue test machine. The fretting fatigue behaviors of steel wires with a strain ration of 0.8 are studied under different contact loads. The damage mechanisms of steel wires are analyzed by the optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The results indicate that the evolution of friction coefficients of steel wires can be divided into four stages, i.e., running-in period, ascending period, declining period and stable period. The fretting regime of steel wires is gross slip regime under the four different contact loads. Corrosive wear, abrasive wear, fatigue wear and plastic deformation are the main wear mechanisms. The fatigue lifetime of the fretted steel wires is inversely proportional to the wear depth. Fatigue fracture surface can be divided into three regions, i.e.,fatigue source region, crack propagation region and transient break regions.