Detecting cracks in a longitudinally vibrating beam with dissipative boundary conditions

This paper focuses on detecting a small open crack in an axially vibrating beam with viscous boundary conditions by using non-destructive dynamical measurements. The damage is simulated by an equivalent linear elastic spring. It is shown that the measurement of the changes in a suitable pair of eigenvalues leads to the solution of the diagnostic problem, namely identification of crack location and severity. Results apply to uniform beams under various sets of boundary conditions. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.