Vibrational characteristics of a rotating shaft containing a transverse crack

Abstract EN

The influence of a transverse crack upon the dynamic behavior of a rotating shaft is studied.

Introduction of such a crack results in lower transverse natural frequencies due to the added local flexibility.

The strain energy release function is related to the compliance of the cracked shaft that is to the local flexibility due to introduction of crack.

This function is related to the stress intensity factor, which for transverse of a shaft with a crack has a known expression.

As a result, the local flexibility of the shaft due to the presence of the crack has been computed.

This result, can be further utilized to yield the dynamic response of a shaft with complex geometry.

Starting from the equation of motion for the shaft under bending to derive the expression of calculating the natural frequency of the shaft.

Two cases of fixing the shaft are suggested in this study to investigate and analyze the vibration characteristics of the shaft with and without cracks.

The fundamental natural frequency showed strong dependence on the crack depth, This dependence is smaller as the order of the frequency increase.

Experimental results are in close agreement with those practical from the theoretical analysis.

Finally, the results showed that the change in dynamic response due to the crack is high enough to allow the detection of the crack and estimation of its magnitude.