Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47

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Journal of Sound and Vibration

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jsvi

The influence of transverse cracks to propagation

characteristics of elastic waves propagating in a non-uniform
shaft
Yimin Wei a, *, Shixi Yang b, Wenhua Chen a, Jianmin Li a
a
National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Reliability Analysis and Testing for Mechanical and Electrical Products,
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
b
College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310000, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The propagation mechanism of vibration in a media such as a non-uniform rotating shaft is
Received 23 May 2018 an important topic since it can help to control the vibration of the media, or to reduce the
Received in revised form 18 December 2018 noise. Vibration propagates in a non-uniform rotating shaft in the form of elastic waves
Accepted 24 December 2018
and the propagation characteristics of the waves are affected by the non-uniform factors,
Available online 27 December 2018
Handling Editor: D.J. Wagg
the transverse cracks and the rotating speed, etc. This study deals with the propagation
characteristics of the elastic waves in a non-uniform shaft with transverse cracks by
adopting the Transfer Matrix method. First, the transfer matrix for a single non-uniform
Keywords:
Propagation characteristic
shaft is derived by constructing the motion equations derived with Equilibrium Equa-
Non-uniform shaft tions. Second, the transfer matrix for a transverse crack is studied. Crack Mode III is
Transverse crack adopted, and the transverse crack is modeled as a local spring, the local flexibility coef-
Rotating speed ficient of which is deduced. The transfer matrix for the non-uniform shaft with transverse
Transfer matrix cracks is then derived by combining the individual matrixes. Finally, several numerical
examples are used to illustrate the influence of different crack depths and alternative
rotating speeds on the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves, which are
compared with the results from the experimental analyses. It's shown that a new stop
band will come out at lower frequency region when a transverse crack occurs and the
bandwidth of which will be wider and wider as the increase of the depth of the crack, and
the rotating speed mainly affects the first stop band, the central frequency of which will
decrease as the increase of the rotating speed.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Rotating shafts can be found in many applications, such as power plant, automotive, aeronautics and astronautics and so
on [1,2]. A rotating shaft is often a non-uniform one, even with one or more transverse cracks. Vibration signals of such a shaft
are often used to analyze the inner mechanism of the issues concerned. The vibration signals are often being collected
indirectly from other positions but not from the vibration sources due to space constraint or other factors. Some useless
vibration will cause noise and even be harmful for the safety [3]. The vibration of a shaft propagates through the shaft in the

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yiminwei@126.com (Y. Wei).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2018.12.032
0022-460X/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
36 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47

form of elastic waves; the study to propagation characteristics of the elastic waves can help to know the real vibration of the
source and help to study the mechanism of the vibration propagation in a shaft. And thus, the study can help to monitor the
status of the shaft as well as to reduce the noise [4,5].
A non-uniform shaft has drawn researcher's great attention in the past few decades, the free vibration of a shaft or shafts is
analyzed by analytical methods which contain advanced signal processing [6e10]. Besides the analytical method, FEA (Finite
Element Analysis) is also used to solve the wave propagation problems as well as the dynamics of a rotor, see Refs. [11e13] and
wave propagation method is also being used to solve the related problems too [14]. As for the shaft itself, the non-uniformities
often show either in geometry or in material properties. Whalley and Abdul-Ameer [15] considered the dynamics of
shafterotor systems, where the shaft profiles are contoured and shafts with diameters which are functions of the shaft length
are analyzed. Banerjee et al. [3] investigated the free bending vibration of rotating tapered beams by using the dynamic
stiffness method and the range of problems considered includes beams for which the depth and/or width of the cross-section
vary linearly along the length. Hosseini and Khadem [16] considered the free vibrations of an extensional simply supported a
rotating shaft with nonlinear curvature and inertia, and Rotary inertia and gyroscopic effects are included while shear
deformation is neglected. Kim [17e19] presented a theory for the dynamics of a rotating, tapered lament-wound composite
Timoshenko shaft. Gayen and Roy [20] dealt with the study of vibration and stability analysis of a functionally graded spinning
shaft system using three-nodded beam element based on the Timoshenko beam theory. Mazzei and Scott [21] researched the
shafts which are tapered and studied the functionally graded materials, with properties varying in the axial direction.
Besides the non-uniform factors, a shaft with a crack also drew many researchers' attention. Ballo [22] dealt with flexural
vibrations of a continuous slender shaft with a crack located at a distance from the left end of the shaft, where the crack effect
is modeled by a switching crack. Gounaris and Papadopoulos [23] applied a new method in rotating cracked shafts to identify
the depth and the location of a transverse surface crack, a local compliance matrix of different degrees of freedom is used to
model the crack.
As for a rotating shaft itself, the rotating speed and gyroscopic effect and their influences to the propagation characteristics
of the waves are also researched. Argento and Scott [24] studied the elastic wave propagation in a circular Timoshenko beam
rotating about its longitudinal axis, in which, the gyroscopic effects are included. Ma et al. [25] focused on the effects of
stagger angles of blades, rotational speeds and casing stiffness on the rubbing-induced vibration responses of the rotor system
and casing. Recently, the authors have studied the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves propagating in a non-
uniform rod, and in a non-uniform multi-step rod by adopting the transfer matrix method, see Refs. [26,27]. To the best
knowledge of the authors, there have been no real attempts to study the influence of different depths of the cracks and the
different rotating speeds of the shaft on the propagation characteristics of the elastic wave.
In this work, we further study the propagation characteristics of elastic waves in a non-uniform rotating shaft. The
Equilibrium Equations are used to derive the motion equations, and which are then used to derive the transfer matrix for a
non-uniform shaft without any transverse crack. The transverse crack is modeled as a local spring and the local flexibility
coefficient is deduced with only considering the torsion load. And then, the transfer matrix for the whole shaft is derived. The
influences of the depth of the transverse crack and the rotating speed of the shaft to the propagation characteristics are
studied based on the transfer matrix. Finally, an experimental rig is setup according to the theoretical study.

2. Transfer matrix of the elastic waves

The non-uniform shaft structure is a common component in mechanical devices. The schematic of such a shaft is shown in
Fig. 1. In the figure, E is the elastic modulus of the material, v is the Poisson's ratio, r is the density of the material, L is the
length, xC is the location of the transverse crack, S(x) is the cross-section area at location x. Usually, the motion status of the
elements on the shaft can be indicated by a state vector y ¼ ½ U U;x Q M T, where U, Ux , Q and M are the displacement, the
slop, the shear, and the moment of the shaft [28e30].
Supposing that the elastic waves propagate along the shaft from one end x0 till the other end xL as shown in Fig. 1, this
process can be expressed by the equation

Fig. 1. A schematic of a non-uniform rotating shaft with a transverse crack.

 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47 37

yðxL Þ ¼ Tyðx0 Þ (1)

where T is called as the Transfer Matrix. Set the i-th eigenvalues of the matrix T to be li , and the eigenvalue li is usually a
complex number and can be expressed as

l ¼ emi
i pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
(2)
where mi ¼ ai þ jb is known as the propagation constants, j ¼ 1, ai is called as the attenuation factor indicating the
attenuation of the amplitude of the elastic waves varies as the frequency, bi is the phase angle indicating the phase difference
of the wave components during propagation. When the phase angle bi equals 0 or ±p, it means that the transmitted waves
encounters the reflected ones cancelling out each other, and thus, the waves with corresponding frequencies couldn't pass
through the shaft [30].

2.1. Transfer matrix in a single shaft without crack

The authors have studied the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves propagating in a non-uniform rod, and in a
non-uniform multi-step rod. The Generalized Hamilton's Principle is used to derive the motion equations for a stepped rod
which are then used to derive the transfer matrix of the waves, see Refs. [26,27]. It's difficult to deduce the motion equations
for a rotating shaft by the Generalized Hamilton's Principle. Thus, the Equilibrium Equations are used to derive the motion
equations of the rotating non-uniform shaft in this paper.
An infinitesimal length dx at location x is selected for detailed analysis as shown in Fig. 2. The density is also r and the
cross-section area is S(x), then, the total mass of the infinitesimal shaft is dm ¼ rSðxÞdx. Suppose that the unbalanced mass mu
is located at point C. The displacement between point C and the center of the cross-section is ε. The motion in the cross-
section can be projected into y- and z-directions. The motion in y-direction is studied firstly, and the motion in z-direction
can be analyzed similarly. Superscript (.) means differential to time t, and subscript (,x) means partial differential to variable x
in this paper. The infinitesimal shaft is rotating along x-axis at rotating speed U ¼ f. _ Considering that the shaft is flexural,
thus, the center of the cross-section O is not coincident with the origin of the coordinate system, see Fig. 2(b).
As shown in Fig. 2, the flection in z-direction is w, and the slope in z-direction is wz ¼ vw , the angular velocity is then dw z
¼
vw_ . Thus, the angular acceleration caused by the two angular velocities is . . . vx dt
vw_ , and the inertial moment is
vx ε y ¼ u x  u z ¼ U vx
MIy ¼ J$εy ¼ rI U vvx w_ dx, where, J represents the infinitesimal shaft's moment of inertia, I represents the polar moment of

inertia of the cross-section.. The shears are.Fy ðxÞ and Fy ðx þ dxÞ on.
the two sides,
.
the moments are MðxÞ and Mðx þ dxÞ, and the
inertial forces are rSðxÞudx€ i þ rSðxÞwdx€ j and mu U2 εð  sin Ut i þ cos Ut j Þdx, separately.
Applying the Equilibrium Equation of the force to the infinitesimal dx shaft in y-direction, it can be inferred that

rSðxÞudx
€  mu U2 ε sin Utdx þ Fy ðx þ dxÞ  Fy ðxÞ ¼ 0 (3)

Eq. (3) can be further written as

vFy
rSðxÞudx
€  mu U2 ε sin Utdx þ dx ¼ 0 (4)
vx

Divided the item dx on both side of Eq. (4), then it can be inferred that

Fig. 2. A schematic of the infinitesimal dx shaft, including the free body diagram of the dx shaft (a) and the front view the cross-section (b).
38 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47

vFy
rSðxÞu€ þ ¼ mu U2 ε sin Ut (5)
vx

Applying the Equilibrium Equation of the moment to the infinitesimal dx shaft in y-direction, it can be inferred that

1
Mðx þ dxÞ  MðxÞ  Fy ðxÞdx  qðxÞðdxÞ2  MIy ¼ 0 (6)
2

Further, Eq. (6) could be written as

vMðxÞ vw_ 1
dx  rIðxÞU dx  qðxÞðdxÞ2 ¼ Fy ðxÞdx (7)
vx vx 2

where, the item 12 qðxÞðdxÞ2 can be omitted for it's a second order infinitesimal value. Then it can be inferred that
Fy ðxÞ ¼ vMðxÞ vw_
vx  rIðxÞU vx by dividing dx on both sides of Eq. (7), and by applying partial differential to this Fy ðxÞ equation, it will
then become that

vFy ðxÞ v2 MðxÞ v2 w_

¼  r IðxÞ U (8)
vx vx2 vx2

Substituting Eq. (8) into Eq. (5), we have

v2 MðxÞ v2 w_
rSðxÞu€ þ  rIðxÞU 2 ¼ mu U2 ε sin Ut (9)
vx2 vx

2
Notice that MðxÞ ¼ EIðxÞ vvxu2 ¼ EIðxÞu;xx , thus, Eq. (9) could be further written as

v2  
rSðxÞu€  rIðxÞUw;xx þ EIðxÞu;xx ¼ mu U2 ε sin Ut (10)
vx 2

Eq. (10) is the motion equation of the shaft in y-direction. Similarly, it can be inferred in z-direction that

v2  
rSðxÞw€ þ rIðxÞUu;xx þ EIðxÞw;xx ¼ mu U2 ε cos Ut (11)
vx 2

Eqs.(10)e(11) are the motion equations of the shaft derived with Equilibrium Equations. Supposing that the motion of the
rotating shaft is harmonic and all the elements on the same cross-section area perpendicular to the shaft have the same
motion, which means that Wðx;tÞ ¼ ½uðx;tÞ þ jwðx;tÞ ¼ UðxÞejut , u is the angular frequency of the elastic waves. Omitting the
item ejut shown on both sides, the motion equations can be written as
 
rSðxÞU€ þ rIðxÞUU;xx þ EIðxÞU;xx ;xx
¼ mu U2 εUu ½sinðUtÞ þ cosðUtÞ (12)

Once the motion equation is derived, and then the transfer matrix can be inferred by applying separation principle.
Considering that there are three variables U, U;x , U;xx in Eq. (12), so let zðxÞ ¼ ½U U;x U;xxx U;xx T , and supposing z;x ¼ AðxÞz,
where AðxÞ is called the state matrix. Neglecting the unbalanced mass and applying separation principle to Eq. (12), it can be
deduced that
2 3
0 1 0 0
6 7
6 0 0 0 1 7
6 7
6
AðxÞ ¼ 6 rSðxÞu2 rIðxÞU þ EIðxÞ;xx 7 (13)
7
6 0 0  7
4 EIðxÞ EIðxÞ 5
0 0 1 0

Usually, the motion status of the shaft is indicated by the vector y ¼ ½ U U;x Q M T as stated before, a certain trans-
formation to vector zðxÞ is needed here herein. Multiplying a coefficient matrix GðxÞ to vector zðxÞ, and letting yðxÞ ¼ GðxÞzðxÞ,
and it can be calculated that
 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47 39

2 3
1 0 0 0
60 1 0 0 7
GðxÞ ¼ 6
40
7 (14)
0 EIðxÞ 0 5
0 0 0 EIðxÞ

Further, it can be deduced that the propagation process from location x0 to location xL of the elastic waves can be written as
2 3
6 Z L 7
6 AðxÞdx 7
6 7
yðxL Þ ¼ 6
6GðLÞe 0 Gð0Þ1 7
7yðx0 Þ (15)
6 7
4 5

Thus, the transfer matrix for the shaft without any crack is
Z L
AðxÞdx
T ¼ GðLÞe 0 Gð0Þ1 (16)

For the case that the cross-section is continuous and no step or no crack appears, the transfer matrix can be expressed by
Eq. (16).

2.2. Transfer matrix at the transverse crack

The crack has different deformation modes due to the different external stresses, even for the same material, the defor-
mation modes may be different. Usually, there are three modes for the crack: opening mode (mode I), sliding mode (mode II)
and tearing mode (mode III), as shown in Fig. 3 [31]. In Fig. 3, mode III is caused by the torsion, just as the Moment shown in
Fig. 2, thus, mode III is adopted in this paper. For a non-uniform shaft with transverse cracks, the local spring model is used
here to simplify and analyze the crack.
A transverse crack and its section view are shown in Fig. 4. The depth of the crack is a, the only load P is the moment M, the
additional strain energy Uc and the additional displacement uci of the crack can be expressed by Ref. [32]
8 Z
>
> U ¼ JðAÞdA
>
> c
<
A (17)
>
>
>
> vU
: uci ¼ c
vPi

where, i ¼ 1,2,3 … 6 are load index, A is the area of the crack, J(A) is the strain energy density function, which is usually
expressed by
 
1  n2 ð1 þ nÞ 2
JðAÞ ¼ Ki (18)
E

Where, Ki (i ¼ I, II, III) is the stress intensity factor for the three different crack modes. For mode III, the factor can be expressed
as

Fig. 3. The three basic modes for a crack and they are Mode I (opening mode) (a), Mode II (sliding mode) (b) and Mode III (tearing mode) (c).
40 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47

Fig. 4. A schematic of the transverse crack in the shaft, with a side view of the transverse crack (a) and a section view of the crack (b).

qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi a 
P 2 pffiffiffiffiffiffi
KIII ¼ R2  x phFIII (19)
p R4 h

The local flexibility coefficient for mode III is defined by

vuc3
c3 ¼ (20)
vP

Substituting Eqs. (17)e(19) into Eq. (20), it can then be obtained that
Z b Z ax
vuc3 v2
c3 ¼ ¼ JðAÞdxdh
vP vMvM b 0
 
2 1  n2 ð1 þ nÞ Z b Z ax 1   a 
¼ R2  x2 hFIII 2 dxdh (21)
b 0 pR
E 8 h
 
4 1  n2 ð1 þ nÞ Z b Z ax 1   a
¼ R2  x2 hFIII 2 dxdh
0 pR
E 8 h
0
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi   pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where, ax ¼ R2  x2  ðR  aÞ, FIII a h ¼ ð2h=paÞtanðpa=2hÞ.
=

The elastic waves propagate from location x0 to location xL, as shown in Fig. 1, certain components of the waves might be
changed due to the transverse crack, and what's more, propagation characteristics of the elastic will change too. It has been
supposed that the elements on the same cross-section area perpendicular to the shaft have the same motion. Actually, the
wave front for a transverse crack (usually a fatigue crack in real practice) is a semi-elliptical one. As the crack is a relatively
small one, the authors treat the front of the crack as a straight one for simplicity. It would cause model error by simplifying the
front, but the error might be a very little one.
The crack locates at xC as shown in Fig. 1. According to the continuous requirements and treat the crack as a local spring, it
can be deduced that
 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47 41

9
Uxþ ¼ UxC >
>
C >
>
Uxþ 0 ¼ UxC 0 þ c3 EIU xC =
00

C (22)
Qxþ ¼ QxC >
>
C >
>
Mxþ ¼ Mx ;
C C

where, the parameter c3 is deduced in Eq. (21) already. Further, Eq. (22) can be written in the following form
8 9 2 38 9 8 9
>
> U> 1 0 0 0 > U> > U>
< 0>= 60
>
< 0=> >
< 0>=
U 6 1 0 c3 7
7 U U
¼4 ¼ Cxþ )x (23)
>
> Q> 0 0 1 0 5> Q > C > Q >
: > >
: > >
: >
C
; ; ;
M xþ 0 0 0 1 M x M x
C C C

Generally, if the transverse crack happens to be the i-th one in the shaft, the matrix for the i-th crack Ci can be obtained
from Eq. (23), and it is
2 3
1 0 0 0
60 1 0 c3i 7
Ci ¼ 6
40
7 (24)
0 1 0 5
0 0 0 1

2.3. Transfer matrix for a shaft with transverse cracks

The transfer matrix for a single shaft without any crack and that for transverse cracks have been studied in the previous
subsections. And the transverse matrix for the whole shaft with transverse cracks can then be deduced.
As shown in Fig. 1, there is a transverse crack on the non-uniform shaft at location xC. The shaft is not continuous and
divided into two parts by the crack. The propagation of the waves can then be treated as three steps, that is from x0 /x
C , from
þ þ
x
C /x C and from x C /x L . Also, the propagation can be described by the following equations
8  
>
>
> y x ¼ TxC )x0 yðx0 Þ
<  C  
y xþ ¼ C1 y x (25)
>
>
C C
 
>
: yðx Þ ¼ T þ
þy x
L xL )x C
C

where, the matrixes TxC )x0 , TxL )xþ can be obtained according to Eq. (16) by substituting the length with ðxC  x0 Þ and ðxL 
C
xC Þ respectively, C1 has been deduced in Eq. (24). Actually, Eq. (25) can be rewritten in the following way

yðxL Þ ¼ TxL )xþ C1 TxC )x0 yðx0 Þ (26)

C

The item TxL )xþ C1 TxC )x0 is just the transfer matrix for a non-uniform shaft with only one transverse crack. More
C
generally, supposing that there are n transverse cracks in a non-uniform shaft, the shaft was divided into nþ1 segments, the
transfer matrix for the shaft can be easily figured out according to Eq. (26), that is

T ¼ Tnþ1 Cn /C1 T1 (27)

The transfer matrix for an individual segment of the shaft and for a crack can be obtained from Eq. (16) and Eq. (24)
respectively.
As can be seen in Eq. (27), since IðxÞ, SðxÞ and U are contained in the transfer matrix, the eigenvalues of which would be
affected by the rotating speed of the shaft as well as the depth of the crack. Considering that Eq. (27) is a complicated
exponential matrix actually, it's impossible to calculate the eigenvalues analytically, thus, numerical methods are often used
to gain the results.

3. Numerical examples and experimental analyses

The transfer matrix of the elastic waves propagating in a non-uniform shaft with transverse cracks is deduced, and how
the rotating speed and the depth of the crack affect the propagation characteristics will be studied in the following content by
performing several numerical examples.
A single shaft with only one transverse crack is applied is this paper for simplification. The cases with multi transverse
cracks can be studied in the same manner. There are two parts for numerical analysis, the first part is analyzing the influence
of the depth of the crack to the propagation characteristics, and the second is analyzing the influence of the rotating speed of
42 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47

the shaft to the propagation characteristics. In part one, a shaft with area ratio AðLÞ ¼ 4Að0Þ is chosen, and the cross-section is
exponentially variable RðxÞ ¼ R0 ea0 x=L , where R0 ¼ 10 mm, a0 ¼ 0.6931 and L ¼ 600 mm. Shafts of other geometries can also
be analyzed in the same way. Meanwhile, a uniform shaft possessing the same volume as the non-uniform shaft is analyzed
for comparison. It can be calculated that the radius of the uniform is 14.71 mm. The transverse crack locates at the position of
L/3 from the end x0 shown in Fig. 1, with crack depth 0, R/4 and R/3, where, R is the radius of the crack location of the shaft. A
non-uniform shaft, AðLÞ ¼ 4Að0Þ, with a transverse crack (depth R/4) located at L/3 from x0, is applied in part two's analysis.
The material of the shaft is steel, with density 7.8  103 kg$m3, elastic modulus 2.06  1011Pa, and Poisson's ratio 0.3.

3.1. Setup

An experimental rig is setup to verify the validation the results of the numerical simulation, as shown in Fig. 5. The
experimental rig is built on a vibration isolation platform, the three-phase asynchronous motor is connected to the shaft by a
flexible coupling. The shaft is supported by two sliding bearings which are fastened on the platform. The three-phase inverter
convertor (SIEMENS SINAMICS V20) can adjust the speed of the motor; thus, the shaft can rotate at different speeds. A signal
function generator (Tektronix AFG3051C), an amplifier (KD KD5702), an exciter (KD KD5602C) and a force sensor (KD
KD3001) are used to excite the elastic waves and measure the magnitude the exciting force. Once the elastic waves are
excited, they would propagate along the shaft. When the elastic waves propagate forward till they reach the other end of the
shaft, the waves themselves will be captured by the acceleration sensors (KD KD1002S). The data-acquiring-system (LMS
SCADAS) will synchronously sample and store the data from different parts including the exciter, the force sensor and the
acceleration sensors as well, recording the complete propagation process.

3.2. Crack depths

The rotating speed U is set as a constant 50 Hz when analyzing the influence of the depth of the crack. The transfer matrix
for the cracked shaft can be induced by substituting the geometrical dimensions and the material properties to Eq. (27). The
shaft is supposed to possess only one transverse crack locating at position L/3 from end x0. Different crack depths a ¼ 0, a ¼ R/
4, a ¼ R/3 are applied in the numerical analysis. The eigenvalues are calculated by programing in the MATLAB software.
The propagation constants for elastic waves in the shaft deduced with different depths are shown in Fig. 6, the rotating
speed is 50 Hz as mentioned before. Different symbol shapes and colors indicate different depths, while the real line and the
dotted line with the same shape are a pair of conjugate propagation constants. As shown in Fig. 6, the stop band is
½860; 1300 when there is no crack, while, when a ¼ R/4, the stop band becomes ½845; 1310, and a new stop band ½0; 160
appears. For the case a ¼ R/3, the new emerging stop band is ½0; 260, and the other stop band is ½795; 1310. The stop
bands are listed in Table 1 for easy comparison.
It can be seen from Table 1 that there will be a new stop band at lower frequency region for the cases with a crack
comparing with the no crack case, and the width of the stop band will be larger as the increase of the depth of the crack. Thus,
it can be inferred that there should be a transverse crack in the shaft if a new stop band occurs at lower frequency region,
compared with the original conditions. This can provide an evidence for the shaft crack detection.
Corresponding experiments are performed in this subsection to verify the numerical analysis above. A uniform shaft
without any crack possessing the same volume as the non-uniform shaft with a transverse crack is also analyzed for com-
parison. The vibration signals of the end xL of the shaft are measured accordingly, and the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform)
analysis is applied to the time domain signals, which can indicate the stop bands of the elastic waves propagating along the
shaft. The Propagation Characteristics are shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 5. The rig built up for the experiments.

 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47 43

Fig. 6. Numerical Propagation Characteristics derived with different crack depths. The attenuation factors (a) and phase angles (b) vary as the wave frequency.
The red lines are the results for a ¼ 0; the green lines are the results for a ¼ R/4 and the black lines are the results for a ¼ R/4. (For interpretation of the references
to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

Table 1
Theoretical Stop Bands derived with different crack depths.

Crack depth Stop Bands (Hz)

a¼0 [860, 1300]
a ¼ R/4 [0, 160], [845, 1310]
a ¼ R/3 [0, 260], [795, 1310]

Fig. 7 is the Propagation Characteristics for elastic waves propagating in shafts with different crack depths; the real line is
the spectrum for the uniform shaft without cracks while the dotted line is the spectrum for the non-uniform shaft with a
crack. If the real line is higher than the dotted line, the according frequency region can be regarded as a stop band [30]. As
shown in Fig. 7, the stop band for case a ¼ 0 is ½865; 1275, the stop bands are ½0; 170, ½885; 1300 for the case a ¼ R/4,
and the stop bands become ½0; 280 and ½810; 1300 for the case a ¼ R/3. The stop bands are listed in Table 2. It can be found
that the experimental results match well with the numerical ones though there are slight errors.

3.3. Rotating speeds

The different crack depths have been researched in the last subsection, and the influence of the different rotating speeds to
the propagation characteristics will be analyzed in this subsection. A shaft with only one crack (depth a ¼ R/4) is chosen for
better analysis to the rotating speed. The transfer matrix can be deduced by substituting the parameters of the crack shaft and
different rotating speed into Eq. (27) and then the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves propagating in the shaft can
be calculated by using the numerical method. The numerical results are shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8 shows the propagation constants of the elastic waves propagating in the cracked shaft deduced with different
rotating speeds. Different symbol shapes and colors of the lines indicate different rotating speeds, while the real line and the
dotted line with same shape indicate a pair of conjugate propagation constants. Stop bands derived at different rotating
speeds are list in Table 3 for clarity.
As can be seen in Table 3, the main difference of the stop bands lies at the first stop band while the second stop band
remains the same. The central frequency of the first stop band decreases as the increase of the rotating speed. It can be
44 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47

Fig. 7. Experimental Propagation Characteristics for different crack depths a ¼ 0 (a), a ¼ R/4 (b), a ¼ R/3 (c).

Table 2
Experimental Stop Bands for different crack depths.

Crack depth Stop Bands (Hz)

a¼0 [865, 1275]
a ¼ R/4 [0, 170], [885, 1300]
a ¼ R/3 [0, 280], [810, 1300]

inferred from the numerical results that the rotating speed mainly affects the first stop band, and the central frequency of the
first stop band will decrease as the increase of the rotating speed.
Experiments are performed for the above numerical simulation. A uniform shaft possessing the same volume as the
cracked non-uniform shaft is analyzed too for better comparison. The acceleration signals of the end xL of the shaft are
measured firstly, and then a spectrum analysis (FFT) is performed to the measured signals. The propagation characteristics of
the elastic waves can be inferred by comparing the spectrums. The experimental results are shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 9 is the Propagation Constants of the elastic waves derived from different rotating speeds. The Propagation Constants
for rotating speed U ¼ 50Hz have already been given out in Fig. 8(b). The real lines in Fig. 9 are the spectrum for the uniform
shaft, while the dotted lines are for the cracked shaft. It can be known that the stop bands are ½130; 325, ½810; 1400 when
U ¼ 0Hz, they are ½85; 300, ½850; 1290 when U ¼ 25Hz, they are ½0; 170, ½885; 1300 when U ¼ 50Hz and they are ½0;
90, ½755; 1300 when U ¼ 75Hz. The stop bands are listed in Table 4. Thus, it can be inferred that the experimental
results match the numerical results well though there are some slight errors which are in a reasonable range. The experi-
mental results can verify the validation the results deduced from the numerical analyses.
 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47 45

Fig. 8. Numerical Propagation Characteristics derived with different rotating speeds. The attenuation factors (a) and the phase angles (b) vary as the wave
frequency. The red lines are the results for U ¼ 0 Hz; the blue lines are the results for U ¼ 25 Hz; the green lines are the results for U ¼ 50 Hz and the black lines
are the results for U ¼ 75 Hz. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

Table 3
Theoretical Stop Bands derived with different rotating speeds.

Rotating speed (Hz) Stop bands (Hz)

U ¼ 0 ½145; 325, ½835; 1315
U ¼ 25 ½100; 310, ½845; 1310
U ¼ 50 ½0; 160, ½850; 1300
U ¼ 75 ½0; 65, ½785; 1275

4. Conclusions

This work investigates the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves in a non-uniform rotating shaft with transverse
cracks. It has been found that:

(1) The depth of the transverse crack has an influence on the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves propagating
in the shaft. When a transverse crack occurs, a new stop band will come out at lower frequency region and the
bandwidth of which will be wider and wider as the increase of the depth of the crack, compared with the no crack case.
For a shaft without crack, if a new stop band occurs at low frequency region compared with the original conditions,
there might be a crack. This can provide an evidence for crack detection.
(2) The propagation characteristics of the elastic waves are also affected by the rotating speed, the rotating speed mainly
affects the first stop band, and the central frequency of which will decrease as the increase of the rotating speed.

The conclusions can help to know the vibration propagating mechanism or to control the useless vibration in real works.
The study to the elastic waves in a shaft is a key issue which needs to be studied further.
46 Y. Wei et al. / Journal of Sound and Vibration 444 (2019) 35e47

Fig. 9. Experimental Propagation Constants derived for different rotating speeds, U ¼ 0 Hz (a), U ¼ 25 Hz (b) and U ¼ 75 Hz (c).

Table 4
Experimental Stop Bands for different rotating speeds.

Rotating speed (Hz) Stop bands (Hz)

U ¼ 0 [130, 325], [810, 1400]
U ¼ 25 [85, 300], [850, 1290]
U ¼ 50 [0, 170], [885, 1300]
U ¼ 75 [0, 90], [775, 1300]

Acknowledgement

This paper was partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China with grant No. 51505430, Interna-
tional S&T Cooperation Program of China with grant No. 2015DFA71400, NSFC-Zhejiang Joint Fund for the Integration of
Industrialization and Informatization with grand No. U1709210, Public Project of Zhejiang Province with grant No.
LGG18E050021, Youth Talent Training Fund of ‘Mechanical Engineering’ in Colleges of Zhejiang Province with grant No.
ZSTUME01B03 and the Research Foundation from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University with grant No. 15022013-Y.

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