doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2695.2011.01653.

Detection and localization of multiple cracks in a stepped shaft

S. K. SINGH1 and R. TIWARI2
1 Department

of Mechanical Engineering, Tezpur University, Tezpur 784028, India, 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, India Received in final form 31 October 2011

A B S T R A C T The presence of a crack in a shaft causes a slope discontinuity in the elastic line of the

shaft. There are crack detection techniques, available in the literature, exploiting the slope discontinuity arising because of the crack in the shaft. Steps present in a shaft are expected to interfere with the results obtained through these identification techniques based upon slope discontinuity. It would be even more difficult to identify a crack if it is near a step as both the step and the crack will cause slope discontinuities. A multi-crack identification technique has been developed (Singh S. K. and Tiwari R. (2010). Mech. Machine Theory 45, 18131827; Singh S. K., Tiwari R. and Talukdar S. (2009). IUTAM Proc. in Recent Trends in Rotor Dynamics, March 2326, IIT Delhi, India) which uses shaft-forced responses at several frequencies to identify the number of cracks and their locations over the shaft. The algorithm uses normalization of quadratic coefficients obtained from measured responses of a cracked shaft and from simulated responses of the intact shaft for detecting the slope discontinuity. In the present work, the effect of steps in the shaft on crack identification has been analysed. Cracks are assumed to be both near the step and far from the step. The identification algorithm works well for both the simulation cases. Keywords multi-crack identification; stepped shaft.
NOMENCLATURE

a wc i, j , a c i, j = quadratic coefficients of intact and cracked shafts, respectively. b = crack depth [Cc ](e) = flexibility matrix of a crack CPFj = crack probability function c i j = flexibility coefficients of a crack D = shaft diameter [K wc ], [Kc ] = stiffness matrices for the intact and cracked shafts, respectively [K ] = stiffness matrix for a cracked element [K ] = fitting stiffness matrices [M] = mass matrix of the shaft q c i, j = cracked shaft response at frequency i and at location xj xj = measurement locations = crack depth ratio (= 2B/D) = crack orientation angle i = excitation frequency

INTRODUCTION

A rotating shaft is prone to develop fatigue cracks in a long span of its service life. A growing fatigue crack may
Correspondence: R. Tiwari. E-mail: rtiwari@.iitg.ernet.in

lead to catastrophic failure of the shaft. Hence, it is important to detect the presence of cracks in the shaft at early stage for the safe running of the machine. There can be more than one potentially dangerous cracks present in the shaft and a condition monitoring system should detect all such cracks. Occurrence of cracks is more favourable

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Fig. 1 A stepped shaft with two cracks.

near the region of stress concentration. Steps in a shaft, provided to fulfil different requirements such as mounting the gears, sprockets, pulleys and bearings, causes a stress concentration in the shaft near the steps. This necessitates the study of detecting cracks in stepped shaft, especially the situation when the crack is near a step, because these (step) locations are more favourable for the occurrence of cracks. The presence of cracks in a shaft causes a slope discontinuity in the elastic line of the shaft. There are crack identification techniques available in the literature, which utilize the slope discontinuity of the shaft elastic line for the detection of the cracks in a shaft. Loutridis et al.1 presented a method for crack identification in double-cracked cantilever beams based on the wavelet analysis. The location of the cracks is determined by the sudden changes in the spatial variation of the transformed response. To estimate the relative depth of the cracks, an intensity factor is established which relates the size of the cracks to the coefficients of the wavelet transform. Chang and Chen2 used spatial wavelet along with change in natural frequencies for the estimation of location and depth of cracks in a multi-cracked beam. Chasalevris and Papadopoulos3 used the wavelet transform along with change in natural frequencies to estimate the size, position and orientation angle of two cracks in a double-cracked beam. Locations of the cracks are estimated by the wavelet transform. For other crack parameters, the depth of two cracks knowing the two angles of rotation, as well as the angles knowing the depth of the two cracks are found out using contours plots made from the change in eigenfrequencies with the crack parameters. Steps in the shaft also cause a slope discontinuity near the location of the steps. Hence the presence of steps in a shaft is expected to interfere with the identification, especially if a crack is present near a step. Previously, a multi-crack identification technique has been developed45 which identifies the number of cracks present in a shaft and their locations over the shaft. The algorithm is based upon fitting the response of the shaft at regular axial distance in a quadratic polynomial and getting the slope discontinuity in terms of the coefficients of the quadratic term. The algorithm uses shaft responses

at several frequencies to reduce the effect of noise in the signal in order to get the slope discontinuity at the crack locations. For a multi-cracked shaft, cracks can be located at any arbitrary orientation angle which is unknown. Authors have developed a method for the calculation of the crack orientation angle by measuring the slope discontinuity at different angular positions of the shaft.6 In the present work, the algorithm is applied to a stepped shaft. The effect of steps in a shaft is analysed for the detection of cracks. Cracks are assumed to be both near and away from the step (Fig. 1).

SYSTEM MODELLING

The Timoshenko beam theory is used in the shaft modelling for transverse vibrations. The FEM is used to develop the discretized model of the shaft. The effect of the proportionate damping has been included.

Model of a shaft element with a crack Figure 2 shows a shaft element with a crack subjected to a transverse loading. Let P 2 and P 3 be shearing forces, P 4 and P 5 bending moments, l the shaft element length, b the crack depth, X Y Z the stationary coordinate system, and X Y Z the rotating coordinate system with Y axis always aligned with crack front. For the transverse loading of the shaft, neglecting the axial and torsional loadings, the flexibility matrix of the crack could be expressed as:6 [Cc ](e) 0 = 0 0 c 22 0 c 33 0 0 0 0 c 44 c 54 0 c 45 c 55 0

(1)

where, c 22 , c 33 , ..., c 55 are the six non-zero flexibility coefficients of the crack, in which four are direct coefficients and remaining two are cross-coupled coefficients. The stiffness variation of the cracked element with the crack

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Fig. 2 (a) A shaft element with a crack subjected to a transverse loading. (b) Crack orientation angle.

orientation angle is given by7 [K ] = [K 0 ] + [K 1 ] cos + [K 2 ] cos 2 + [K 3 ] cos 3 + [K 4 ] cos 4 (2)

where [K ], = 0, 1, . . . , 4, are the fitting compliance matrices, determined from the known behaviour of the stiffness matrix at certain crack orientation angles. System equations of motion Equations of motion for the intact shaft and the cracked shaft can be written, respectively, as 2 [M] + j [Dwc ] + [Kwc ] {Q} = {F} and 2 [M] + j [Dc ] + [Kc ] {Q} = {F} (4) (3)

(5)). Now, the quadratic coefficients of polynomials are normalized by similar coefficients obtained from the intact shaft response (Eq. (9)) in such a way that while adding them at different frequencies (Eq. (10)), the slope discontinuity is amplified and the effect of noise in the signal is reduced. In the present work, in the absence of actual measurements for the cracked shaft response, both the intact shaft and the cracked shaft responses are simulated (using Eqs (3) and (4) respectively). For the application of the algorithm to real rotors, intact shaft responses will come from the numerical simulation and cracked shaft responses will come from actual measurements.

The multi-crack identification algorithm Figure 3 shows measurement locations over a shaft (any other boundary conditions could also be incorporated). Now, suppose that the number of equidistant locations at which linear DOFs are measured is (n2), and that the number of frequencies at which the system is excited is k. Including boundary conditions (e.g. the simply supported) at two ends, we have the information of linear DOFs at n locations. Let us denote the measured deflection of the cracked shaft for frequency i and at location xj by q c i, j . Also let the deflection predicted by the model of the intact shaft in the vertical plane be represented by q wc i, j . Polynomial coefficients (a c i, j , b c i, j , c c i, j ) for the crackedshaft can be written as a c i, j b c i, j c c i, j x 21 j x j 1 xj x j +1 1 q c i, j 1 1 q c i, j , q c i, j +1 1 1 (5)

where subscripts, c and wc, are used to represent the damping and stiffness matrices of cracked and the intact (without crack) systems, respectively. Equation (4) is used to generate the response of cracked shaft for the numerical simulation. Equation (3) is used to generate the response of the intact shaft. For application of the algorithm to an actual test rig also, responses of the intact shaft can be generated by Eq. (3). The actual measurement of intact shaft responses, if available, could be used in the algorithm in place of simulated intact shaft responses. Then, the modelling of the shaft for getting intact shaft responses will not be needed. But in case intact shaft responses are not available, the algorithm would work with the simulated intact shaft response. For continuity, the identification algorithm of Refs [45] with small modifications is briefly presented in the next section.

2 = xj x2

j +1

i = 1, . . . , k; j = 2, . . . , n 1.
IDENTIFICATION OF MULTIPLE CRACKS IN SHAFT

To find out the slope discontinuity of the vibrating (cracked) shaft, measured forced responses from the cracked shaft are fitted with a quadratic polynomial (Eq.

Here, q c i, j 1 , q c i, j , and q c i, j +1 are displacements in the vertical direction at measurement locations, x j 1 , x j , and x j +1 , respectively. Similarly, coefficients a wc i, j , b wc i, j , c wc i, j for the intact shaft can be written in terms of corresponding

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Fig. 3 Measurement locations over the shaft.

I deflections. Now define a wc i by I a wc i =

NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS

max (a wc i,2 , ..., a wc i,n1 ) min (a wc i,2 , ..., a wc i,n1 ) , ka (6) i = 1, . . . , k

II where ka is a constant. Now define a wc i, j and a cII j by i, II I a wc i, j = a wc i, j min (a wc i,2 , ..., a wc i,n1 ) + a wc j ,

(7) (8)

I a cII j = a c i, j min (a c i,2 , ..., a c i,n1 ) + a wc i , i,

i = 1, . . . , k; j = 2, . . . , n 1. On normalizing the cracked shaft coefficients so that the coefficients at different frequencies can be added, by III defining a i, j by
III a i, j =

In a numerically simulated example, a stepped shaft (shown in Fig. 1) of 0.01 m diameter and 1 m length is considered. For the response generation by using FEM, the shaft is divided into 80 elements. However, shaft deflections at 19 equidistant points are considered as measured data. The forcing direction is vertical. The algorithm works with responses measured at several frequencies, with the measurement noise added in it (to mimic the actual experimentation). But for explaining the working of the algorithm, initially, a single-frequency forcing is used for the shaft excitation and also the measurement noise is not added. Next, identification examples are taken with responses at several frequencies and noise added in it. Example I In the first example, a stepped shaft is considered with a single crack. The step in the shaft is considered near the 7th measurement location while the crack is taken near the 12th measurement location. Hence the crack is located at 25cm from the shaft step. The size of the step is given in Fig. 1. The crack depth ratio and crack orientation angles for the crack are taken to be 1 = 0.6 and 1 = 0 , respectively. The crack depth ratio, , is defined as the ratio of the crack depth, b, to the radius of II the shaft, D/2. The coefficients a cII j and a wc i, j , obtained at i, 50 Hz of excitation frequency, are plotted in Fig. 4(a). The normalized coefficients, a III , are plotted in Fig. 4(b). It is j clear from Fig. 4(a) that the effect of the shaft step is not there in the normalized coefficients. From Fig. 4(a), as the slope discontinuity at the location of the shaft step is almost same in both the shafts (intact as well as the cracked), its effect is cancelled during the normalization. But at the location of the crack, only the cracked shaft has the slope discontinuity which gives a peak in the normalized coefficients at the location of the crack. For the application of the algorithm to real cracked shaft, the presence of the step in the shaft would be known; hence it can be taken into account while modelling the shaft for getting intact shaft responses. Example II Now in the second example, two cracks are considered. While keeping all other parameters the same as in

a cII j i,
II a wc i, j

, i = 1, . . . , k; j = 2, . . . , n 1,

(9)

and then for each measurement location, adding the modIII ified coefficients a i, j obtained at different excitation frequencies i , we get new coefficients a IV as j
III III III a IV = a i, j + a i, j + .... + a i, j , j = 2, . . . , n 1. j

(10)

The coefficients obtained above can be scaled down to vary between 0 and 1. For this purpose, define, a V by j
a V = abs j
IV IV IV a IV min a 2 , a 3 , ...., a n1 j IV IV IV IV IV IV a 2 , a 3 , ...., a n1 min a 2 , a 3 , ...., a n1

max

j = 2, . . . , n 1.

(11)

Now, crack probability functions,C P F j , can be defined as the absolute distance of the coefficients a IV from its mean j as
V V V C P F j = abs a V mean a 2 , a 3 , ...., a n1 j

, (12)

j = 2, . . . , n 1.

Here, crack probability functions,C P F j , give the probability of the presence of a crack between locations xj1 and xj+1 . The higher the values of these probability functions the higher the chances that a crack is present.

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Fig. 4 Quadratic coefficients for the first example (step near the 7th location, one crack of crack depth ratio 0.6 near the 11th measurement location).

Fig. 5 Quadratic coefficients for the second example (step near the 7th location, two cracks of crack depth ratios 0.6 each and located near the 7th and 11th measurement locations.

Example I, the location of the second crack is chosen to be the same as the location of the step. Resulting values of II the coefficients a cII j and a wc i, j are plotted in Fig. 5(a), and i, the normalized coefficients a III are plotted in Fig. 5(b). j For the crack located away from the step, normalization is similar to the previous example. For the crack near the shaft step, the slope discontinuity in both the shaft segments are not same, and hence the slope discontinuity of the cracked shaft is not cancelled out completely due to the normalization. Thus, it gives a peak near the location of the crack. Hence, for a stepped shaft, even if a crack is located near a shaft step, the algorithm is able to identify the presence of a crack. In the above two examples the crack orientation angles for the two cracks are taken to be zero. Now, the above two examples are presented with measurement noise added in shaft responses. In Figures 4 and 5 a single excitation frequency is used for explaining the working of the algorithm. In the actual

case, measured shaft responses would be contaminated with the measurement noise. Hence, to mimic the actual experimentation, 1% noise is added in shaft responses. With the present level of sophistication in the sensor and data-acquisition technology the assumed noise level is a practical assumption. In the presence of measurement noise, the presence of cracks is not evident from the plot of normalized coefficients at a single frequency. It is evident from the plot of normalized coefficients in Fig. 6. Hence, the identification algorithm uses shaft responses at several frequencies to reduce the effect of noise in the measurements. Now the crack probability functions are obtained using several excitation frequencies (5, 10, . . . , 110 Hz). The natural frequency of the intact shaft is 125.8 Hz. Crack probability functions for Example I (crack near measurement location 12 and shaft step near the measurement location 7) are given in Fig. 7(a). The crack orientation angle for the crack is taken to be 10 . For Example II

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Fig. 6 Normalized quadratic coefficients: (a) first example (b) second example.

Fig. 7 CPFj for (a) first example (b) second example.

(first crack near the measurement location 7 and the second near the measurement location 12 with the shaft step near the measurement location 7) the crack probability functions are given in Fig. 7(b). Crack orientation angles for the first and second cracks are taken to be 10 and 45 , respectively. For both the cases, the algorithm is identifying the presence of cracks properly, as peaks in the plots are coming at the location of cracks. The multi-crack identification algorithm presented in the IDENTIFICATION OF MULTIPLE CRACKS IN SHAFT section is based on finding the slope discontinuity in the elastic line of the shaft, caused by the presence of crack in the shaft. Although the presence of the shaft step is also producing a slope discontinuity, its effect is neutralized after normalization because of similar slope discontinuity in the intact shaft also. The special normalization technique used in the algorithm is capable of keeping only that slope discontinuity which is arising from the crack, and it is in contrast with the techniques based upon wavelet transform which will show a slope discontinuity at the location of the step also.

CONCLUSIONS

The multi-crack identification algorithm has been applied for a stepped shaft. The shaft step as well as the crack in a shaft produces a slope discontinuity in the elastic line of the shaft. During normalization of the quadratic coefficients of the cracked shaft with those obtained from the intact shaft, the slope discontinuity due to the shaft step cancels out and only that due to the crack remains. Hence, the crack identification algorithm is unaffected in the presence of steps in shafts. For simulated examples, cracks are considered to be both near and far from the shaft step. The algorithm is identifying the presence of cracks even if the crack is near the step and measurement noise is present in forced responses.

REFERENCES
1 Loutridis, S., Douka, E. and Trochidis, A. (2004). Crack identification in double-cracked beams using wavelet. J. Sound Vibr. 277, 10251039.

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Chang, C. C. and Chen, L. W. (2005). Detection of the location and size of cracks in the multiple cracked beam by spatial wavelet based approach. Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 19, 139155. Chasalevris, A. C. and Papadopoulos, C. A. (2006) Identification of multiple cracks in beams under bending. Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 20(7) 16311673. Singh, S. K. and Tiwari, R. (2010). Identification of a multi-crack in a shaft system using transverse frequency response functions. Mech. Machine Theory 45, 18131827. Singh, S. K., Tiwari, R. and Talukdar, S. (2009). A multi-crack identification algorithm based on forced vibrations from a shaft

7 8

system. IUTAM Proc. in Recent Trends in Rotor Dynamics, March 2326, IIT Delhi, India. Singh, S. K. and Tiwari, R. (2010). Multi-crack identification using forced responses from a rotor system. Proc. of the Sixth International Conference on Vibration Engineering and Technology of Machinery (VETOMAC-VI), Dec. 1315, IIT Delhi, India. Dimarogonas, A. D. and Paipetis, S. A. (1983). Analytical Methods in Rotor Dynamics, Elsevier Applied science, London. Papadopoulos, C. A. and Dimarogonas, A. D. (1988). Stability of the cracked rotors in the coupled vibration mode. ASME J. Vibr. Acoust. Stress Reliab. Design 110, 356359.

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