Modal Strain Energy based Crack Inspection in Mono Composite Leaf Spring

Structural performance and safety in composites have become a major issue of modern engineering technology. The composite structure fails catastrophically due to lack of monitoring. The use of composite structures in automotive vehicles has increased drastically in recent years. To overcome this problem, damage detection at early stage is a serious concern in the structures. Among the various Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) techniques, the vibration-based methodologies have emerged as one of the potential monitoring techniques. In the paper, Modal Strain Energy (MSE) is used to inspect the artificially created crack in Mono Composite Leaf Spring (MCLS). Initially, eigenvalues and eigenvectors are determined for modeled baseline and cracked leaf spring using MATLAB programming. Then, element damage indices are calculated using stiffness of both springs. Finally, elemental modal strain energies and its variation among both the spring are determined. The presence of crack is identified based on variation of natural frequencies, location by damage index and severity by sensitivity of MSE. It has been concluded that the proposed method precisely evaluates the presence, position, and severity of crack.