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Virginia Tech

Vibration Analysis of Cracked Composite Bending-torsion Beams for Damage Diagnosis

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

An analytical model of cracked composite beams vibrating in coupled bending-torsion is developed. The beam is made of fiber-reinforced composite with fiber angles in each ply aligned in the same direction. The crack is assumed open. The local flexibility concept is implemented to model the open crack and the associated compliance matrix is derived. The crack introduces additional boundary conditions at the crack location and these effects in conjunction with those of material properties are investigated. Free vibration analysis of the cracked composite beam is presented. The results indicate that variation of natural frequencies in the presence of a crack is affected by the crack ratio and location, as well as the fiber orientation. In particular, the variation pattern is different as the magnitude of bending-torsion coupling changes due to different fiber angles. When bending and torsional modes are essentially decoupled at a certain fiber angle if there is no crack, the crack introduces coupling to the initially uncoupled bending and torsion. Based on the crack model, aeroelastic characteristics of an unswept composite wing with an edge crack are investigated. The cracked composite wing is modeled by a cracked composite cantilever and the inertia coupling terms are included in the model. An approximate solution on critical flutter and divergence speeds is obtained by Galerkin's method in which the fundamental mode shapes of the cracked wing model in free vibration are used. It is shown that the critical divergence/flutter speed is affected by the elastic axis location, the inertia axis location, fiber angles, and the crack ratio and location. Moreover, model-based crack detection (size and location) by changes in natural frequencies is addressed. The Cawley-Adams criterion is implemented and a new strategy in grouping frequencies is proposed to reduce the probability of measurement errors. Finally, sensitivity of natural frequencies to model parameter uncertainties is investigated. Uncertainties are modeled by information-gap theory and represented with a collection of nested sets. Five model parameters that may have larger uncertainties are selected in the analysis, and the frequency sensitivities to uncertainties in the five model parameters are compared in terms of two immunity functions.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph. D.
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Mechanical Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Mechanical Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2004

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Wang, Kaihong
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Inman, Daniel J.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Robertshaw, Harry H.
  • Park, Gyuhae
  • Singh, Mahendra P.
  • Leo, Donald J.

Subjects

dc:subject × 7

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-12032004-110007
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/29891

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Wang, Kaihong. Vibration Analysis of Cracked Composite Bending-torsion Beams for Damage Diagnosis. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/29891