Analysis of cracks in beams using ANSYS

Date : Jan 2018 - Present

This paper describes finite elemental analysis of a cracked cantilever beam and analyzes the relation between the modal natural frequencies with crack depth, modal natural frequency with crack location. Also the relation among the crack depth, crack location and natural frequency has been analyzed. Only single crack at different depth and at different location are evaluated and the analysis revels relationship between crack depth and modal natural frequency. As we know when a structure suffers from damage its dynamic property can change and it was observed that crack caused a stiffness reduction with an inherent reduction in modal natural frequencies. Consequently it leads to change in dynamic response of the beam. The analysis was performed using ANSYS software. The material of the beam is taken as aluminum. The proposed technique represents actually a modal analysis having great benefits for health monitoring of structures. For this 3D model of cantilever beam with single crack is created in ANSYS. Total 49 model of crack cantilever beam has been analyzed. Thus result obtained from ANSYS software we can draw the graph of modal natural frequency Vs crack depth for constant crack location and modal natural frequency Vs crack location keeping crack depth constant. And finally the value obtained from ANSYS is checked with result obtained from analytical method.