A simply supported shaft with a transverse crack is investigated for its vibrational characteristics. The local flexibility due to the presence of the crack is represented by a 6 × 6 matrix for six degrees of freedom in a short shaft element which includes the crack. A finite element analysis is carried out for free and forced vibrations. The possibilities of backward whirl due to the crack are presented. The severity of the fluctuating bending stresses in shafts due to the crack is associated with the backward whirl of the rotor. © 1994 Academic Press Limited.

A. Seshadri Sekhar

Department of Mechanical Engineering

B.S. Prabhu

Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad&nbsp;(IIT Palakkad or IIT PKD) is a public autonomous&nbsp;engineering&nbsp;and&nbsp;research&nbsp;institute located in&nbsp;Palakkad,&nbsp;Kerala. It was&nbsp;one of the five new&nbsp;IITs&nbsp;proposed in the&nbsp;2014 Union budget of India. The campus was inaugurated on 3 August 2015. The institute has 94 faculty, 978 students, and 63 non-teaching staffs.

IT Palakkad currently offers four-year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and two years MS programmes in 8 different engineering disciplines including&nbsp;Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil among others.

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Journal	Journal of Sound and Vibration
ISSN	0022460X