An energy-based model for impact-sliding fretting wear between tubes and anti-vibration bars in steam generators

Abstract The interaction between tubes and anti-vibration bars (AVBs) can cause fretting wear of the tubes. The impact-sliding wear caused by random excitation could not be predicted accurately by current models, therefore an energy-based wear model was proposed in this paper to obtain a better prediction. Statistical analysis was established to obtain parameters such as the impact angle and the energy loss. The results show that impact angle larger than 45° can induce more pronounced energy loss of impacts. The advantage of the energy-based model was proved through the comparison with Archard model. The effect of different wear conditions was analyzed through the microscope and the mechanism of the energy-based expression was elaborated.