Using a Dovetail Fixture to Study Fretting Fatigue and Fretting Palliatives

Abstract

Fretting fatigue damage can reduce the service life of engineering components in contact. The attachment between blades and disks in the fan and compressor stages of gas turbine engines is often a dovetail geometry. As a result, normal and tangential cyclic contact loads are present. Results of fretting fatigue tests using a new dovetail fixture are detailed here. Dovetail specimens and three types of contact pads were all machined out of Ti−6A1−4V. Two types of palliatives are also examined: aluminum bronze coatings and low-plasticity burnishing. While the palliatives were effective in increasing the fatigue life, the three pad geometries produced essentially the same fatigue life.