Detection of a Rotor Crack Using a Harmonic Excitation and Nonlinear Vibration Analysis

Detection of a rotor crack based on the nonlinear vibration diagnosis using harmonic excitation force is investigated. The open-close mechanism of crack is firstly modeled by a piecewise linear function. In addition, another approximation crack model using a power series function that is convenient for the theoretical analysis is used. When the power series function crack model is used, the equations of motion of a cracked rotor have linear and nonlinear parametric terms. In this paper, a harmonic excitation force is applied to the cracked rotor and its excitation frequency is swept, and the nonlinear resonances due to crack are investigated. The occurrence of various types of nonlinear resonances due to crack are clarified, and types of these resonances, their resonance points, and dominant frequency component of these resonances are clarified numerically and experimentally. Furthermore, nonlinear theoretical analyses are performed for these nonlinear resonances, and it is clarified that the amplitudes of these nonlinear resonances depend on the nonlinear parametric characteristics of rotor crack. These results enable us to detect a rotor crack without stopping the system during on-line operation.