Load Effect on 1Cr18Ni9 Stainless Steel Wires' Fretting Behaviors in Metal Rubber Dampers

Cool-drawn 1Cr18Ni9 stainless steel wires of phi 0.1 similar to 0.5 mm can be woven and punched to prepare metal rubber (MR) dampers. There is certain amount of contact point/surface on wires in the transformable component and the displacements between wires are at micron levels. This kind of dampers usually works at variable load. In order to study load effect on wires' fretting behaviors i.e. MR components' vibration fatigue behaviors, the two phi 0.3 nun wires are fixed in 0.1 mm-deep grooves cutting on the traditional column-block samples and dry fretting experiments at load of 20N, 25N and 30N are made on SRV high temperature wear tester. Experiments showed that wear course of 'fretting cell' could be plotted as four phases: polish, adherence, forming of the third bed and stabilization. Based on data of MR vibration fatigue experiment and reference report, parameters of fretting experiment are designed and friction coefficients are collected at load of 20N, 25N and 30N. Results indicate that friction coefficient rises at the beginning of fretting and it will reach the stable phase at point of 350, 240 and 120 fretting cycles respectively. In wire's stabilization wear phase the value of friction coefficient fluctuate around 0.4-0.42 and the amplitude is below 0.1. Friction coefficient curves at the three degree of load are close to each other. Fretting traces are measured and studied by OLYMPUS LEXT OLS3000, laser scanning confocal microscope (LSCM), and KEYENCE VHX-600, three-dimensional microscopy. This paper compares the load effect on wires' fretting behaviors and supply data support for MR materials' application as dampers.