A damage phenomenon called fretting fatigue frequently takes place when two contact bodies are clamped together under a normal contact load along with a small-scale oscillatory motion due to cyclic loading. In contrast to the constant contact loading, less attention has been paid to variable contact loading which was technically reviewed in this study. Emphasis was placed on the efforts made over the past decade and the future challenges including nonlinear effects of contact loads, friction, frequency, slip amplitude, wear, and contact mechanic are discussed extensively. It was revealed a need for new fatigue and contact mechanics models by identifying the aforementioned missing parameters.
