Influence of Axial Loads to Propagation Characteristics of the Elastic Wave in a Non-Uniform Shaft

The vibration propagates through the shaft in the form of elastic waves. The propagation characteristics of the elastic waves are affected by the axial loads. The influence of the axial loads to the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves is studied in this paper. Firstly, the transfer matrix of the elastic waves for the non-uniform shaft with axial loads is deduced by combining the transfer matrix without axial load and the additional equation caused by the axial load. And then, a numerical method is used to study the influence of the axial load, non-uniformity and the rotating speed to the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves. It’s found that a new Stop Band will appear due to the axial force, and the central frequency of which will decrease as the increase of the force, while the band width of which remains the same. The central frequency of the new Stop Band will also increase as the increase of the cross-section area ratio; however, the rotating speed of the shaft doesn’t affect the propagation characteristics of the elastic waves obviously. Finally, an experimental rig is built up for further study, even though there are some small local errors, the results of experiments match well with the numerical ones, which indicates the validation of the theoretical results. The result can help to study the influence of the axial load to the dynamics of a non-uniform shaft and help to reveal the vibration propagating mechanism in such a shaft.