Frequency Based Damage Detection and Localization of Propeller Shaft of a Ship Using Experimental Modal Analysis

Abstract

The whole ship is dependent on the propeller shaft for its movement, the vibrations produced from the shaft destabilizes the whole ship and may lead to accidents. With this objective in mind, in this paper, we describe a methodology to detect and locate the crack present in the intermediate simply supported shaft using experimental modal analysis. In the present work, 304 stainless steel material shaft is taken as the specimen as it is one of the most versatile and widely used steels in the world for making different shafts used in any machinery equipment like ships propeller shaft, engine shafts, motor shafts. Initially, analytical analysis is done on the simply supported shaft then numerical modal analysis using ANSYS 2019 R3 software. Results obtained from the numerical modal analysis are compared with the experimental modal analysis which is done using FFT analyzer. Finally, the first three natural frequencies are used as a tool to detect damage detection and location in the propeller intermediate shaft.