Coupled transverse and axial vibratory behaviour of cracked beam with end mass and rotary inertia

In this paper the vibrational behaviour of a cracked cantilever beam carrying end mass and rotary inertia is investigated. The transverse and axial vibrations of the beam are coupled through the crack model. The values of the ratio between the cracked and uncracked beam natural frequencies, the frequency ratio, are examined and are shown to follow well-defined trends with respect to the crack parameters and end mass and rotary inertia. However, the coupling between the transverse and axial vibrations is shown to be weak for the first two modes for moderate values of crack depth ratio. High crack depth ratios appear to increase the coupling effects. Low aspect ratios are expected to show strong coupling effects and further investigation is recommended using Timoshenko beam theory. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.