Abstract:The uniaxial fretting fatigue characteristics of LZ50 axle steel such as stress-strain hysteresis loop, fretting wear scars, fracture and cross section morphology were investigated. The formation and evolution mechanism of the debris produced in the fretting wear process and the fatigue failure mechanism were analyzed, too. The results indicate that, LZ50, under the condition of uniaxial fretting fatigue loading, had less irreversible plastic power consumption. The fretting fatigue damage mechanisms are adhesive wear and abrasive wear, accompanied with oxidation wear. The fragmentation products wore off from the matrix material surface are oxidized and formed into wear debris, in which the hard particles aggravate the abrasive wear, and accelerated the fretting fatigue failure. The dimension of fretting fatigue crack initiation is about 100μm, and fracture surface is perpendicular to the direction of cyclic loading.