Fretting fatigue tests were conducted to investigate the effect of contact pressure on fretting fatigue behavior in aluminum alloy A7075-T6. Test results showed that when the contact pressure is so low that gross or partial slip occurs at the pad/specimen interface, fretting fatigue damage increases with the contact pressure. However, when the contact pressure is high enough to prevent slip at the interface, fretting fatigue damage decreases with the contact pressure. In order to understand how the contact pressure influence the fretting fatigue damage, finite element analyses were conducted and the analysis results were used to evaluate critical plane fretting fatigue damage parameters and their components. It is revealed that fretting fatigue damage estimated with the parameters exhibits the same variation as that in the tests. Moreover, the variation of fretting fatigue damage is closely related with that of the maximum normal stress on the critical plane rather than the strain amplitude on the critical plane.
