Modelling the non-linear behaviour of the contact area in fretting-fatigue: Extension of the non-local approach to elastically dissimilar contacting bodies

There are two major difficulties in the prediction of fretting-fatigue life. The first is the presence of strong stress gradient localized at contact edges. The second difficulty concerns the non-linear behaviour of the contact region due to the presence of partial slip zones. A non-local model, based on thermodynamics of irreversible processes, was introduced by Rousseau et al. [1] to represent the non-linear behaviour of the partial slip zone. This model uses non-local quantities to represent the stress gradient around contact edges. The aim of the work presented in this article is to extend the non-local model to contacts between elastically dissimilar materials. In industrial applications, the bodies in contact are generally made of different materials and therefore elastic dissimilarity must be taken into account. One of the main issues was that the contact between elastically dissimilar bodies introduces coupling between normal and shear tractions at the contact interface. A new strategy was proposed to decouple normal and shear effects in the non-local model. The non-local model is built in a non-intrusive way, making it easy to use and implement in an industrial context. • Analogy between dissimilar contact problem and interfacial fracture mechanics. • A new strategy to decouple normal and shear modes in the non-local model is proposed. • The non-local model well approximates finite element simulation results. • Influence of elastic dissimilarity of contacting bodies on intensity factors is shown.