Development of a Modular Fretting Wear and Fretting Fatigue Tribometer for Thin Steel Wires: Design Concept and Preliminary Analysis of the Effect of Crossing Angle on Tangential Force

This work presents the design of a modular ad-hoc fretting fatigue and fretting wear tribotester for thin steel wires. The working principles of the different modules are described, such as the displacement and contact modules. Preliminary studies for understanding the effect of crossing angle between wires on tangential force measurement has been carried out on 0.45 mm diameter cold-drawn eutectoid carbon steel (0.8% C). The results show that due to the developed wear scar geometry for high crossing angles there is a non-Coulomb behaviour that is not seen for low crossing angles.