Implementation of a cohesive zone model for the investigation of the dynamic behavior of a rotating shaft with a transverse crack

The influence of a transverse crack on the vibration of a rotating shaft has been at the focus of attention of many researchers. The knowledge of the dynamic behavior of cracked shaft has helped in predicting the presence of a crack in a rotor. Here, the changing stiffness of the cracked shaft is investigated based on a cohesive zone model. This model is developed for mode-I plane strain and accounts for triaxiality of the stress state explicitly by using basic elastic-plastic constitutive relations. Then, the proposed numerical solution is compared to the switching crack model, which is based on linear elastic fracture mechanics. The cohesive zone model is implemented in finite element techniques to predict and to analyse the dynamic behavior of cracked rotor system. Timoshenko beam theory is used to model the discrete shaft under the effect of gravity, unbalance force and gyroscopic effect. The analysis includes the cohesive function for describing the breathing crack and the reduction of the second moment of area of the element at the location of the crack. (© 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)