Vibration Analysis of a cracked prismatic Beam

Vibration analysis is one of the fundamental tasks in designing of structural and mechanical system. The effect of vehicle suspension system, vibration absorber on the rotating machineries and the dynamic behaviour of machine tool structures due to excitation are the important information that design engineer wants to obtain. It has been observed that most of the structural members fail due to the presence of cracks. The cracks are developed mainly due to fatigue loading. Existence of crack in a beam not only affects the stiffness but also it affects the mechanical behaviour of the beam. Due to the existence of such cracks the frequencies of natural vibration, amplitudes of forced vibration, and areas of dynamic stability change. In order to identify the magnitude and location of the crack, analysis of these changes is essential. The present article deals with the analysis of a cracked beam with transverse open crack and investigates the mode shape frequencies.