Fretting damage is a key factor restricting
the reliability
and
long life of high-strength titanium alloy fasteners. The fretting
damage mechanisms correlated by the interplay relationship between
wear damage and surface fatigue damage still need to be addressed.
In the present work, fretting damage mechanisms of a high-strength
titanium alloy (Ti-15Mo-2.7Nb-3Al-0.25Si, in wt %) were studied in
depth. To represent the different matches of strength and toughness,
three microstructures with different volume fractions of the primary
α phase (A-20%, B-10%, C-1%) were applied to fretting wear tests.
The evolution process of fretting wear effected by different microstructures
is simulated and quantitatively combined with the sectional inclined
angle of scars and the antiwear velocity of wear debris. The results
demonstrate that the final worn volume of B-10% is the greatest and
the best fretting wear resistance is achieved in A-20%. For wear damage,
due to both the poor protective effect of the tribolayer and the fact
that the tribolayer is hard to compact, B-10% has the highest wear
velocity. For surface fatigue damage, the slip ratio was calculated
and used as a bridge to correlate and predict wear damage and fatigue
damage. The microcrack damage is most severe in C-1% but slight in
A-20%. This study provides valuable experimental data for the prediction
of fatigue life for fretting of titanium fasteners, and the quantitative
analysis method could be generalized to other alloys.