Lifetime prediction of linear slide rails based on surface abrasion and rolling contact fatigue-induced damage

The research presented in this paper deals with the development of an integrated numerical model for the estimation of the incremental surface wear and damage accumulation in linear slide rails. The target is the estimation of the progressive increment of the end-point deflection of the last member of the slide rail during the operational lifetime. The surface abrasion is accounted for by utilizing a modified Archard equation with the aim of estimating the amount of wear along the vertical direction of the slide rails members. In addition to that, the Lemaitre damage model is utilized for the estimation rolling contact fatigue (pitting), considering the total strain and not only the plastic strain. Experiments have been carried out on a small-scale slide rail testing machine in order to define the wear increment on the slide rail inner groove for increasing number of cycles and, accordingly, estimate the modified Archard model constants. In addition to that, the wear parameters for the Lemaitre damage model have been inversely calibrated from the results of tensile tests. A numerical model has been implemented in ABAQUS/Explicit and an external geometry-update subroutine has been employed to update the geometry of the slide rail groove for increasing number of cycles as a consequence of wear and roll contact fatigue. The comparison between numerical and experimental results on real rails have shown a maximum deviation equal to 12.9%, supporting the reliability of the proposed approach.