International

Journalof
International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
Fatigue
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijfatigue

Effect of surface treatments on fretting fatigue of Ti–6Al–4V

a,*
Patrick J. Golden , Alisha Hutson b, Vasan Sundaram c, James H. Arps d

a
Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright–Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7817, USA
b
University of Dayton Research Institute, Dayton, OH 45469-0128, USA
c
Boeing Phantom Works, P.O. Box 3707, Seattle, WA 98124-2207, USA
d
Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238-5166, USA

Received 20 January 2006; received in revised form 28 September 2006; accepted 8 October 2006
Available online 28 November 2006

Abstract

The objective of this work was to investigate the performance of several coatings and surface treatments subjected to fretting fatigue
with Ti–6Al–4V specimens and pads. Five coating systems were initially chosen and tested using two different fretting fatigue apparatus.
The five coating systems considered were two types of Diamond Like Carbon (DLC), plasma sprayed molybdenum coating, electroless
nickel–boron, and a plasma nitrided surface. In addition to the coatings, two surface treatments, Laser Shock Processing (LSP) and Low
Plasticity Burnishing (LPB) were also considered both with and without coatings. Specimens with two of the best performing coatings
were first subjected to LSP and LPB prior to coating application and then tested for fretting fatigue. These initial results show that the
DLC coating significantly improves the fretting fatigue lives of the laboratory specimens.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Fretting; Fatigue; Ti–6Al–4V; Coatings; Laser shock processing; Low plasticity burnishing; Residual stress

1. Introduction partial slip. This is particularly true of military fighter

Fretting is a phenomenon that occurs between two mat-
ing components that are clamped together with a normal
force, and have a relative tangential displacement [1,2].
Fretting has two modes. The first is gross slip, which occurs
when the entire contact interface slides. The second is par-
tial slip where there is no gross slip, but the shear loading
results in localized slip near the edges of contact. These
regions are known as slip zones, and the center region that
has no slip is known as the stick zone. Fretting is a problem
in many aerospace applications such as airframe lap joints
and the dovetail or fir tree attachment between an engine
blade and disk. In fact, fretting or fretting fatigue has been
identified as one of the costliest sources of in-service dam-
age related to high cycle fatigue (HCF) in the US Air Force
[3]. In a turbine engine, the dovetail contact experiences
mixed-mode fretting with periods of both gross slip and
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 937 255 5438; fax: +1 937 656 4840.
E-mail address: patrick.golden@wpafb.af.mil (P.J. Golden).
engines which have major ground–air–ground cycles as
well as multiple throttle excursions in flight resulting in
many minor cycles. The major cycles produce gross slip
and the minor cycles often result in partial slip.
It is well understood that the coefficient of friction, l, is
an important driver of fretting fatigue performance. In a
gas turbine engine blade attachment, a reduced l can
reduce the shear loading and thus reduce the crack driving
force. Stress analysis also shows that for the same shear
load, a reduced l will lower the peak edge of contact stres-
ses that contribute to the initiation of cracks [4]. With this
in mind, the goal of a coating developer is to provide a
coating with a low l that can be maintained for a long per-
iod. Soft coatings such as Al–Bronze or Cu–Ni–In along
with a solid lubricant such as MoS2 provide the desired
performance [5] but can wear out over time. This raises
the question, can a hard coating offer a low value of l
for a longer life without wearing out? Soft coatings are also
thought to offer additional advantages such as compliance
between mating components, so conceivably a combination

0142-1123/$ - see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2006.10.005
 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
Fig. 1. Photographs of (a) the SS fretting fatigue fixture and (b) dovetail fretting fatigue fixture.
of hard and soft coatings might be more desirable instead
of a stand alone hard coating. Several researchers have
investigated the use of thin, hard, low-friction coatings
such as DLC or TiN [6,7]. These coatings are wear resistant
and can maintain a low coefficient of friction, and offer a
potential alternative to coatings currently in use. The
application techniques available for these coatings include
non-line-of-sight methods such as plasma immersion ion
processing or radio frequency plasma deposition [8], which
will allow application to hidden surfaces such as small
dovetail slots in engines.
Research has also shown that surface treatments that
induce compressive residual stresses, such as shot peening,
are beneficial to fretting fatigue [9]. Recently, advanced
surface treatments such as LSP and LPB have been shown
to significantly extend fretting fatigue life and increase fret-
ting fatigue strength in laboratory experiments [10,11].
Here, advanced surface treatments refer to those processes
that induce deep compressive residual stress, approxi-
mately 1 mm, with little cold work compared to shot peen-
ing. It is believed that the presence of the compressive
residual stress works to inhibit the growth of fretting
induced cracks, though it might not act to slow the nucle-
ation of cracks in the very high edge of contact stress field.
The objective of this work was to study the behavior of
several hard coatings applied to a turbine engine material
when tested for fretting fatigue. Additionally, it was desired
to evaluate the performance enhancement due to advanced
surface treatments in conjunction with these coatings. Two
fretting fatigue test rigs were chosen for this study. One
uses a straight sided (SS) specimen and two pair of flat pads
1303
for gripping. This fixture will be referred to as the SS fix-
ture (Fig. 1a). The second used a dovetail shaped specimen
with 45 flank angles in contact with two fretting pads. This
fixture is referred to as the dovetail fixture (Fig. 1b). Five
hard coatings were chosen and applied to sets of three spec-
imens for each fixture for a total of 30 experiments. These
included two DLC coatings (DLC #1 and DLC #2), an
electroless nickel–boron (Ni–B) coating, plasma sprayed
molybdenum (Mo), and a plasma nitrided surface. Speci-
mens with two of the best performing coatings were first
subjected to LSP and LPB prior to coating application
and then tested for fretting fatigue. Specimens subjected
LSP or LPB treatments alone were also tested. Finally, fati-
gue specimens were coated and tested to assess the effect on
the baseline fatigue performance of the material.
2. Experimental procedures
The material for the fretting fatigue portion of this study
was Ti–6Al–4V provided by the US Air Force National
Turbine Engine High Cycle Fatigue Program [12]. All fret-
ting specimens and pads were machined from this material
which was an a + b forged Ti–6Al–4V alloy. After being
forged, the plates were solution treated and overaged
(STOA) at 932 C for 75 min, fan cooled, and then mill
annealed at 704 C for 2 h. This heat treatment resulted
in an approximately 60% primary a and 40% transformed
b microstructure. The yield strength of this material was
930 MPa and the ultimate strength was 980 MPa. The
smooth bar fatigue specimens were Ti–6Al–4V cylindrical
hour glass shaped specimens machined from bar stock.
1304 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
The processing of this material was not known, but the
yield strength was 930 MPa and the ultimate strength was
approximately 990 MPa. They were provided by The Boe-
ing Company for stress-life (S-N) testing and had a gage
section with an 8 mm diameter and a 229 mm radius tran-
sition to the grip section. The grip diameter was 19 mm and
the total specimen length was 178 mm. Fig. 2 is a schematic
drawing of the fatigue coupon.
2.1. SS fixture
The SS fixture is a unique, high frequency test system
used to conduct tests simulating the fretting fatigue damage
that occurs in turbine engine blade attachments [4]. The
apparatus uses flat fretting pads, with a radius at each edge
of contact, gripped against a flat specimen at the top and
bottom of the specimen as shown in Fig. 1a. Identical pads
were used at the top and bottom of the specimen. The test
geometry is designed to function entirely in the partial slip
fretting fatigue regime, and so restricts the maximum nom-
inal shear stress to that which can be reached for a given
nominal clamping stress before total slip occurs. A previ-
ous study has shown that the bending moment present in
the apparatus is negligible relative to other parameters
[13]. No attempt is made to produce the bending moment
that real dovetail attachments could have. As with many
fretting fatigue apparatus, the clamping force is constant
and only the axial and shear loads are oscillatory.
Since the axial stress on the SS fixture specimen is trans-
ferred entirely to the fixture through shear, the axial stres-
ses in the specimen are zero on one end of the pad. The
shear force into the pad is, therefore, determined from
the load applied to the specimen. Also, the symmetry of
the apparatus causes a specimen to break on one end, leav-
ing the other end with a fretting scar and damage. All tests
in this fixture were conducted with a 620 MPa average
clamping stress under ambient lab conditions using a fret-
ting pad with a 6.35 mm flat length and 3.1 mm blending
radii at both edges of contact. Applied stresses were cycled
at 300 Hz using a stress ratio, R, of 0.5. Each specimen was
subjected to uniaxial fatigue using a step-loading procedure
[14] to determine a fatigue limit stress corresponding to
fatigue life of 10 million cycles. The initial maximum stress
Fig. 2. Drawing of the cylindrical hourglass specimen used for S-N testing (measurements in mm).
for each experiment was selected to allow 10 million
applied cycles without specimen fracture. If the specimen
fractured within the first 10 million cycles, the data were
considered as typical S-N results. If no fracture occurred,
the maximum axial stress was increased by five percent of
the initial value and loaded for another 10 million cycles.
These load steps were continued until the specimen frac-
tured, and a fatigue limit stress was interpolated from the
stress steps and the number of cycles accumulated at the
final stress. This technique for quantifying a fatigue limit
stress for a chosen fatigue life was validated in earlier fret-
ting fatigue studies using the same apparatus [15]. Valida-
tion was conducted by comparing the 10 million cycle
fretting fatigue strength found by traditional stress-life
(S-N) testing with the 10 million cycle fretting fatigue
strength found by the step test procedure. No significant
difference was observed between the results of these testing
methods. Additionally, testing has shown no coaxing in the
Ti–6Al–4V material used in this study for smooth bar fati-
gue tests [16].
2.2. Dovetail fixture
The current experimental setup is similar to that used in
the previous work by Conner and Nicholas [17] and is com-
prised of a dovetail fixture with replaceable pads, a wedge
shaped specimen, and a friction grip for the bottom of the
specimen as shown in Fig. 2b. The dovetail fixture and fric-
tion grip are attached to a 50 kN servo-hydraulic test frame
which applies the remote loading, Fapp. The test fixture is
aligned using a woods metal pot and a specially designed
alignment fixture. The woods metal pot is a fixture linking
the actuator with the lower friction grip through a pot filled
with a low melting point alloy. The metal is melted allow-
ing the specimen, or in this case the alignment fixture, to
move and be aligned. The metal is then cooled to a solid,
thus locking the fixture into alignment. The fretting pads
in this test are removable and replaced after each test. They
are clamped in place by machine screws threaded into the
back of the pads through the fixture. The base of the pads
are 25.4 mm by 9.45 mm to fit in the full width of the slot,
however, the contact area of the pad is reduced in width to
match the 7.62 mm width of the specimen. Previous work
 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
has used Ti–6Al–4V contact pads with three different pro-
files: cylindrical contact with 51 mm radius, a 1 mm flat
with 11 taper and blended radius, and a 6.4 mm flat pad
with 3.2 mm radius corners. For this work a 3 mm flat with
3 mm radius edge profile was chosen. This profile is consis-
tent with the geometry used by other researchers for fret-
ting fatigue experiments on the same material, as part of
the National HCF Program [18].
A constant amplitude remote load of Fmax = 24 kN at a
load ratio R = 0.1 was chosen for all bare and coatings
tests. The tests were cyclically loaded at a frequency of
30 Hz until specimen failure or until a predefined run-out
was reached. Specimen failure was defined by a large crack
that was detectable by the fixture strain gage instrumenta-
tion. As will be discussed in the results section, only two
out of 16 specimens with LSP or LPB failed in the rig even
though higher maximum loads of 26–29 kN were used. Still
higher test loads or cycles could not be achieved due to
threat of failure of the test rig. Loading of the test fixture
was found to be limited by the design of the pin joint
and clevis at the top of the fixture.
2.3. Coatings
One objective of this study was to evaluate the potential
applicability of ‘‘hard’’ coatings to the problem of fretting
fatigue in a turbine engine disk. The ideal candidate coat-
ing would be applied through a non-line-of-sight method
allowing the application to small dovetail slots in higher
stages within the engine. With this criterion in mind, four
coatings were selected based on performance for wear resis-
tance. One coating type was selected from two vendors for
a total of five coatings. These coatings are listed in Table 1
along with the number of fretting fatigue specimens coated.
In addition to fretting fatigue specimens, multiple bend
strips were coated for adhesion testing and ‘‘button’’ spec-
imens were coated for reciprocating sliding tests to assess
the tribological properties of each coating. A description
of this testing and the corresponding results can be found
in Hager et al. [19,20].
DLC is a thin, hard, and often low friction coating.
Specimens were coated with DLC by two different vendors
using two different non-line-of-sight methods [8]. The first
was prepared using a plasma immersion ion processing
Table 1
Number of experiments performed with each surface treatment
Coating SS fixture Dovetail fixture
DLC – Vendor #1 3 3
DLC – Vendor #2 3 3
Molybdenum 3 2
Ni–B 3 3
Nitride 3 3
LSP 0 3
LPB 0 3
LSP + DLC #2 0 3
LPB + DLC #2 0 3
1305
method resulting in coating thickness of approximately
1.5 lm. An interlayer of silicon was applied to improve
adhesion under load. The second vendor used a radiofre-
quency plasma deposition process with a silicon bond coat
for improved adhesion. The coating thickness was approx-
imately 5 lm.
Another set of samples was coated with molybdenum
using a plasma spray method. A plasma spray was achieved
by using heat transfer from a high-power electric arc to a
gas directed through nozzles. When heated to high temper-
ature part of the gas is ionized into plasma. The metallic
powder is injected into the heated gas, melts, and then
impacts the part at high velocity. This method is clearly
not a non-line-of-sight application method, however, there
is significant interest in Mo as an anti-fretting coating in
turbojet engines so it was considered in this study. The
coating was measured at approximately 40 lm thick and
had a higher roughness than the machined surfaces. A third
set of samples were coated with nickel–boron (Ni–B) using
an electroless plating method. This coating has been shown
to have significant reduction in wear due to its hardness
and low friction properties. The surface finish was nearly
the same as the original machined finish and the coating
thickness was approximately 55 lm.
The last coating was applied to the samples using a high
intensity plasma nitriding process. Low temperature nitro-
gen plasma is generated using a hot filament source which
emits electrons. Plasma is generated due to electron-neutral
gas collisions. The part attracts ions due to the application
of a low voltage. A nitrogen diffusion layer approximately
4 lm deep was achieved.
2.4. Residual stress modifications
Two advanced surface treatments were chosen for this
study. The term advanced surface treatments is used here
to describe any of several methods of inducing deep com-
pressive residual stresses into the material with relatively
low cold work. LSP and LPB were chosen for their appli-
cability to the problem of fretting between the blade and
disk attachment. The test plan only included applying these
treatments to the dovetail specimens and not the thin SS
specimens. The residual stress field induced by these pro-
cesses is geometry dependent and it was expected that the
thin specimens used in the SS rig would have very high
compensatory tensile residual stresses internally. Prior
work [10,11] has shown that LSP and LPB will both signif-
icantly improve fretting fatigue strength. The objective of
these tests was, therefore, not simply to discover if LSP
and LPB can improve fretting fatigue strength, but also
to show that the application of coatings after LSP or
LPB would not reduce the effectiveness of the process.
Two coatings were applied along with LSP and LPB, Mo
and DLC #2, but only the DLC was successfully tested.
DLC from vendor #2 was picked due to promising fatigue
and fretting fatigue results. It was applied to specimens that
were previously subjected to LSP or LPB. Potential issues
1306 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
200
0 900
Residual Stress (MPa)
-200
-400
-600
-800
0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Depth (mm)
Fig. 3. In-depth residual stress measurements taken from dovetail
specimens just outside the fretting scar.
to be studied were the effects of surface finish due to LSP or
LPB processing on the adhesion and performance of the
coating as well as the effect of the coating application on
the residual stress distribution. Specifically, the heat
involved in certain coating applications could result in
relaxation of some or all of the residual stresses.
The residual stresses in the treated areas of the dovetail
specimens were measured at multiple depths up to 1 mm.
These measurements were taken by X-ray diffraction in
the direction of the shear loading just above the fretting
scars. All measurements were taken from specimens post-
mortem, but at a location sufficiently outside of the fretting
scar that it was assumed there would be no significant
change in the residual stress. Material removal was per-
formed by electropolishing away layers of material fol-
lowed by careful thickness measurement. Layers of
material were removed as small as 15 lm near the surface
where the residual stress gradient is expected to be steep.
The final residual stress profile was reported after stress
gradient and material removal relaxation corrections were
made [21,22]. Fig. 3 shows the residual stress measurement
results.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Uniaxial fatigue
Fatigue testing was conducted to determine if the coat-
ing application process or the coating itself would decrease
the fatigue performance. Only specimens with the two
DLC coatings were tested. The tests were all conducted
at R = 0.1 with five different maximum stress levels:
690 MPa, 758 MPa, 827 MPa, 896 MPa, and 965 MPa.
The results are plotted in Fig. 4. At 965 MPa, which corre-
sponds best with the very high edge of contact stresses pres-
ent in the fretting fatigue samples, the DLC samples seem
to have a higher scatter than the bare specimens with some
possible reduction in average life. There are not enough
1000
Max Stress (MPa)
800
LSP
LSP + DLC
LSP + Mo 700
LPB
Bare Ti-6Al-4V
LPB + DLC DLC - #1 Lab Air
LPB + Mo DLC - #2
R = 0.1
600
0.8 1 1.2 104 105 106 107
Nf (cycles)
Fig. 4. S-N data for hour glass shaped bare and DLC coated fatigue
specimens.
data, however, to determine with confidence that the
DLC reduces the fatigue life. At the mid range stresses,
827 and 896 MPa, the DLC from vendor #2 clearly has a
reduction in fatigue life for the few tests conducted in this
study. The DLC from vendor #1 has a smaller reduction at
896 MPa and no apparent reduction at 827 MPa. The high-
est stresses are the most interesting to the fretting fatigue
problem. At the lowest stress levels, there is no distinction
between the DLC and bare samples. Overall, these results
show that the DLC coating may contribute to a reduction
in fatigue performance by a factor of approximately four
or less under some conditions.
3.2. Fretting fatigue
The results of the straight sided fretting fatigue tests are
of specific interest in light of the uniaxial fatigue test
results. These specimens are subject to very little wear dam-
age since gross sliding is eliminated, and can therefore effec-
tively assess if the coatings of interest will affect the fretting
fatigue strength of the material in question.
The results of the SS fixture experiments are listed in
Table 2. Each experiment was begun at a different maxi-
mum applied stress level, and step loaded according to
the technique described earlier to assess the fretting fatigue
strength of each specimen for comparison with the strength
of uncoated specimens. The fretting fatigue strength is
reported for each successful step test in columns 3–5 of
the table. The average of the step test results are shown
in column 6, and the increase of that average compared
with the baseline value (shown in the last row of the table)
is given in column 7. Negative numbers reported for ‘‘%
increase in FF strength’’ indicate a debit in fretting fatigue
strength. The baseline strength value, rA = 250 MPa, was
obtained for an average applied clamping pressure, pave,
of 620 MPa from six repeat experiments. Here rA is defined
as the remotely applied maximum bulk stress. The
corresponding standard deviation was approximately
 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310 1307

Table 2
Test results from the SS fretting fatigue test fixture with pave = 620 MPa, R = 0.5
Step test results, rA (MPa) S-N test results
Coating # 1 2 3 Average % Increase in FF strength Max stress, rA (MPa) 1 2
Bare 6 – – – 250 –
DLC #1 3 334 347 260 314 26
DLC #2 3 290 264 277 11 260 4,484,688
Mo 3 216 242 229 8 240 3,271,000
Ni–B 3 242 242 3 220 2,336,116 2,156,328
Nitride 3 189 194 191 191 24

16.3 MPa for R = 0.5. This comparison indicates that the 40

Room Temp
nitride coating measurably reduced the fretting fatigue R = 0.1
strength of this material, while the Ni–B, Mo and DLC 2 Repeats Each DLC
30 5M Cycle Runouts
coating from vendor #2 did not reduce the fretting fatigue

Maximum Fapp (kN)

strength, but also did not improve it. The DLC coating
from vendor #1 improved the fretting fatigue strength sub-
stantially in the SS fretting fixture experiments.
In several of the experiments, fracture occurred during
the first loading block. Those data are reported in Table
2 as S-N data in the three columns to the far right. The
maximum applied stress is shown in column 8, and the
cycles to failure are shown in columns 9 and 10, where col-
umn 9 represents the first experiment for each coating
where failure occurred in less than 10 million cycles, and
column 10 includes the second experiment. Note that only
three specimens were tested for each coating, so if one frac-
tured prior to 107 cycles, a blank is included under the step
test results.
For DLC #1, no S-N data is reported since all three
experiments were successfully step loaded. For DLC #2
and the Mo coatings, one S-N test each is reported. The
DLC #2 results still indicate no reduction in FF strength,
since the S-N test was performed at rA = 260 MPa. The
S-N test for the Mo coating was conducted at rA =
240 MPa, and coupled with the step test results, indicates
a possible decrease in FF strength with this coating. The
final Mo coated specimen (chronologically) had been pol-
ished in the coating region to assess the effect of the coating
roughness, which was known to be much higher than the
other coatings. A slight increase in FF strength is indicated,
but it is still lower than the uncoated baseline data.
Two S-N tests are shown for the Ni–B coating. Both
were performed at 220 MPa, and so clearly suggest a reduc-
tion in FF strength with this coating. Thus, the DLC coat-
ing is the only hard coating that can be recommended for
fretting fatigue applications, based on these results.
The results of the coated dovetail specimens are shown
in Fig. 5 along with the baseline uncoated results. The base-
line test results range from approximately 100,000 to 5 mil-
lion cycles. Since the number of coated specimens was
limited, a single remote load was chosen to repeat all tests.
A load of Fmax = 24 kN and load ratio of R = 0.1 was cho-
sen for its baseline performance of 3 · 105 cycles, leaving
room for longer lives. The nitrided specimens performed
significantly worse than the bare specimens under these test
conditions. Although nitriding may improve wear resis-
20
Baseline
DLC #1
DLC #2
Nitride
Moly
Ni-B
10
105 106 107
Nf (cycles)
Fig. 5. Dovetail fretting results with stress modification.
tance important for many applications, it also resulted in
a brittle layer near the surface of the sample. It appeared
this might have formed an abrasive debris layer after only
a few cycles thus increasing l. This worsened the fatigue
crack initiation and fatigue crack growth properties. The
three tests conducted showed very little scatter, and an
overall reduction in life by a factor of four.
The molybdenum and electroless nickel–boron coated
samples performed very similarly for the dovetail fretting
fatigue test conditions. Both had cycles to failure consistent
with the baseline data. Although the roughness of the Mo
and Ni–B specimens were somewhat higher than the
uncoated specimens, it is believed that this was not a signif-
icant factor in the test results. The Mo coated samples were
particularly rough due to the application process and they
had not been machined post application. A portion of the
Mo coated samples were, therefore, hand polished prior to
testing to determine the influence of the coating roughness.
Prior studies [23] have shown that fretting fatigue is insen-
sitive to surface roughness. The results in both the dovetail
and SS fixtures do not indicate a significant improvement
in fretting fatigue behavior due to the polishing of the
Mo coating.
The dovetail samples that were coated by each of the
DLC vendors had very similar fretting fatigue properties.
As Fig. 5 shows, all but one specimen was a 5 million cycle
run out at the 24 kN loading. The fifth specimen, coated by
1308 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
vendor #1, failed after 2.9 million cycles, which is still a 10·
increase in life over the baseline data. Overall, the DLC
coated dovetail tests had an approximately 30% increase
in fretting fatigue strength at 5 million cycles relative to
the baseline. As expected from the fatigue test results for
DLC, there appears to be no reduction in fatigue crack ini-
tiation or propagation properties due to the presence of the
DLC. The magnitude of this increase in fretting fatigue
strength due to DLC, however, was not expected. Reasons
for this increase are discussed below.
Fig. 6 is a plot of the dovetail results for the experiments
with residual stress surface treatments listed in Table 1.
Note that results for the Mo coated LSP and LPB speci-
mens are not included here since no successful experiments
were conducted under these conditions. These specimens
did not fail in the fretting fatigue region because of damage
caused to the specimen due to coating overspray. The
heavy solid line is a power fit to the non-surface-treated
baseline data. The dashed line to the right is simply a power
law with the same slope as the baseline data shifted to pass
through the surface treated data shown. These results dem-
onstrate at least a 30% increase in fretting fatigue strength
at 2 million cycles. Two bare specimens processed with LSP
failed, but no such failures were observed for the LPB trea-
ted specimens even though higher test loads were used with
some of these experiments. A comparison between LSP
and LPB results, however, is inconclusive due to the lack
of failure data. Still higher loads or longer duration tests
along with more specimens would be required to distin-
guish the performance differences between these two
treatments.
Fig. 3 is a plot of the corrected residual stress measure-
ments into the depth of the dovetail specimens. First, it is
clear that the LSP and LPB residual stress profiles have dif-
ferent shapes. The LSP residual stress profile has a mini-
mum value at the surface and monotonically increases
into the depth. This is expected since the peak amplitude
40
Room Temp
R = 0.1
30
Maximum Fapp (kN)
20
DLC
LSP
LPB
LSP + DLC
LPB + DLC
Baseline
10
105 106
Nf (cycles)
Fig. 6. Dovetail fretting fatigue results for LSP and LPB and coated with
DLC.
of the laser shock occurs at the surface and then attenuates
as it travels into the material. The LPB residual stress pro-
file has a very common hook shape similar to that seen
from shot peening. This occurs due to the first yield occur-
ring subsurface due to the Hertzian stress distribution.
Both profiles have very similar surface values and depth
of compression. The LPB processed specimens has a signif-
icantly higher magnitude compressive residual stress sub-
surface. Of greater significance is that the application of
either DLC or Mo coatings did not reduce the magnitude
or depth of the compressive residual stresses.
3.3. Coefficient of friction
The coefficient of friction, l, can be very difficult to mea-
sure in any type of test setup. In the SS fixture it is only
possible to measure the value once per test, and then only
the static value can be determined. The measurement is
made by increasing the load until the specimen slides out
of the grips while recording the load and the relative dis-
placement. This test was not conducted as part of this
study. In the dovetail rig, however, it is possible to measure
l any time gross slip occurs. As discussed more thoroughly
in Golden and Nicholas [24] the trace of the shear force, Q,
versus the normal force, P, can be read to identify when
gross slip and partial slip are occurring. The coefficient of
friction l is then simply the value of Q/P during gross slip.
In the tests conducted for this study, gross slip typically
only occurred during the first half cycle or the first few
cycles until l increased slightly and eliminated gross slip.
Fig. 7 shows the last measured value of l before the test
completed in partial slip. When plotted against cycles to
failure it is clearly seen that l has a correlation with life.
This is due to the two factors that l influences life time,
as described earlier. First, a lower l reduces the cyclic shear
loading for the same remote load. This is measured and is
known. Secondly, a lower l near the edge of contact
0.6
Baseline
DLC #1
3 LSP+DLC DLC #2
2 LPB+DLC Nitride
Mo
Ni-B
0.4
Initial μ
4 Repeats 0.2
5M Cycle Runouts
Room Temp
Fmax = 24 kN
R = 0.1
0
104 105 106 107 108
107
Nf (cycles)
Fig. 7. Dovetail fretting fatigue test results plotted in terms of initial
average coefficient of friction versus life to failure. Arrows indicate run-out
tests.
 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
reduces the local edge of contact stresses. This value cannot
be measured directly. It is understood that l can be much
higher locally in the slip zone than the average value of l. If
the coating remains in the slip zone, however, one still
might expect a lower local l than with baseline tests with
no coatings.
Extensive stress and life analysis has been performed on
these experimental results in another study [25]. In that
work a thorough stress analysis of the dovetail specimens
was performed using the contact loads measured from
these experiments followed by crack initiation and crack
propagation analyses. A critical input to these analyses
was l. The value of l greatly influenced the magnitude of
stress in the slip zones where the cracks initiate. The aver-
age l for these tests was found to equal approximately 0.2–
0.3, however, previous work with Ti–6Al–4V has shown
that the slip zone value of l is typically 0.7 or higher for
these types of tests. The analysis in [25] found that a value
of 0.7 for the slip zone l resulted in good life predictions
for the bare Ti–6Al–4V tests, but poor predictions for the
DLC coated tests. When the lower value of 0.25 was used
for the slip zone l the life prediction of the DLC coated
tests matched the experimental results quite well. This anal-
ysis supported the reasoning that DLC improves the fret-
ting fatigue life by reducing the slip zone l.
4. Conclusions
Several hard coatings were considered in this study of
fretting fatigue performance. These included two DLC
coatings, plasma sprayed Mo, electroless Ni–B, and a
nitriding process. Additionally, two coatings, DLC and
Mo, were chosen for testing along with two advanced sur-
face treatment processes, LSP and LPB. Only one surface
treatment performed significantly worse than the baseline
for the coating evaluations. The nitrided specimen had sig-
nificantly reduced fretting fatigue strength. The thicker
coatings, Mo and Ni–B, both had nominally the same per-
formance as baseline tests in both plain fatigue and fretting
fatigue. These could be very good coating choices if the
fretting fatigue application has other design factors such
as wear resistance. Finally, the DLC coatings showed no
decrease in plain fatigue properties, but a significant
improvement in fretting fatigue performance which was
likely due to a reduction in l throughout the test. The addi-
tion of LSP and LPB to the dovetail specimens with no
coatings greatly improved fretting fatigue strength as
expected. The addition of DLC to the LSP or LPB treated
specimens resulted in no loss of performance, but no judg-
ment can be made about additional benefit since results
were inconclusive since all of these tests were run-outs.
Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by a contract admin-
istered by Anteon Corporation with Mr. Bob Bondurak as
program monitor. The authors like to acknowledge the
1309
support of coating and surface treatment vendors Diamo-
nex, Universal Chemical Technologies, Southwest
Research Institute, Cincinnati Thermal Spray, LSP Tech-
nologies, and Lambda Technologies. Thanks also to
Lambda Technologies for providing the residual stress
measurements.
References
[1] Johnson KL. Contact mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press; 1985.
[2] Hills DA, Nowell D. Mechanics of fretting fatigue. Dordrecht:
Kluwer; 1994.
[3] T Nicholas. Critical issues in high cycle fatigue. Int J Fatigue
1999;21(S):S221–31.
[4] Hutson AL, Nicholas T. Characterization of fretting fatigue crack
initiation processes in Ti–6Al–4V. Tribol Int 2003;36:133–43.
[5] Fridrici V, Fouvry A, Kapsa Ph. Fretting wear behavior of a Cu–Ni–
In plasma coating. Surf Coat Technol 2003;163–164:429–34.
[6] Wu L, Holloway BC, Beesbathina DP, Kalil C, Manos DM. Analysis
of diamond-like carbon and Ti/MoS2 coatings on Ti–6Al–4V
substrates for applicability to turbine engine applications. Surf Coat
Technol 2000;130:207–17.
[7] Klaffke D, Skopp A. Are thin hard coatings (TiN, DLC, diamond)
beneficial in tribologically stressed vibrational contacts? – Effects of
operational parameters and relative humidity. Surf Coat Technol
1998;98:953–61.
[8] Dearnaley G, Arps JH. Biomedical applications of diamond-like
carbon (DLC) coatings: a review. Surf Coat Technol 2005;200:
2518–24.
[9] Liu D, Tang B, Zhu X, Chen H, He J, Celi J. Improvement of the
fretting fatigue and fretting wear of Ti–6Al–4V by duplex surface
modification. Surf Coat Technol 1999;116-119:234–8.
[10] Shepard MJ, Prevey PS, Jayaraman N. Effects of surface treatment on
fretting fatigue performance of Ti–6Al–4V. In: 8th National turbine
engine HCF conference; 2003.
[11] Clauer AH, Sokol DW, Garcia DB, Bernadel L, Ravindranath R.
Increased fretting fatigue life in laser peened Ti–6Al–4V. In: 8th
National turbine engine HCF conference; 2003.
[12] Gallagher JP, et al. AFRL-ML-TR-2001-4159, Improved high-cycle
fatigue (HCF) life prediction, Wright–Patterson Air Force Base, OH,
2001.
[13] Hutson AL. Fretting Fatigue of Ti–6Al–4V under Flat-on-Flat
Contact with Blending Radii. MS Thesis, School of Engineering,
University of Dayton, Aug 2000.
[14] Maxwell DC, Nicholas T. A rapid method for generation of a high
diagram for high cycle fatigue. In: Fatigue and fracture mechanics. In:
Panontin TL, Sheppard SD, editors. ASTM STP 1321, 29th Volume.
West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM International; 1999. p. 626–41.
[15] Hutson AL, Ashbaugh NE, Nicholas T. An investigation of fretting
fatigue crack nucleation life of Ti–6Al–4V under flat-on-flat contact.
In: Mutoh Y, Kinyon SE, Hoeppner DW, editors. Fretting fatigue:
advances in basic understanding and applications, STP 1425. West
Conshohocken, PA: ASTM International; 2003. p. 307–22.
[16] Nicholas T. Step loading, coaxing and small crack thresholds in Ti–
6Al–4V under high cycle fatigue. In: Chan KS, Liaw PK, Bellows RS,
Zogas TC, Soboyejo WO, editors. Fatigue – David L Davidson
symposium. Cleveland: TMS (The Minerals, Metals & Materials
Society); 2002. p. 91–106.
[17] Conner BP, Nicholas T. Using a dovetail fixture to study fretting
fatigue and fretting palliatives. J Eng Mater Technol ASME
2006;128:133–41.
[18] McVeigh PA, Harish G, Farris TN, Szolwinski MP. Modeling
interfacial conditions in nominally flat contacts for application to
fretting fatigue of turbine engine components. Int J Fatigue 1999;21:
S157–65.
1310 P.J. Golden et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 29 (2007) 1302–1310
[19] Hager Jr CH, Sanders JH, Sharma S. Characterization of mixed and
gross slip fretting wear regimes in Ti–6Al–4V interfaces at room
temperature. Wear 2004;257:167–80.
[20] Hager Jr CH, Sanders JH, Sharma S. Effect of high temperature on
the characterization of fretting wear regimes at Ti–6Al–4V interfaces.
Wear 2006;260:493–508.
[21] Koistinen DP, Marburger RE. Trans ASM 1964:67.
[22] Moore MG, Evans WP. Mathematical correction for stress in
removed layers in X-Ray diffraction residual stress analysis. SAE
Trans 1958;66:340–5.
[23] Hutson AL, Niinmi M, Nicholas T, Eylon D. Effect of various surface
conditions on fretting fatigue behavior of Ti–6Al–4V. Int J Fatigue
2002;24:1223–34.
[24] Golden PJ, Nicholas T. The effect of angle on dovetail fretting
experiments in Ti–6Al–4V. Fat Fract Eng Mater Struct 2005;28:
1169–75.
[25] Golden PJ, Shepard MJ. Life prediction of fretting fatigue
with advanced surface treatments. Mater Sci Eng A-Struct, [in
press].