Vibrational Analysis of cantilever type plates of 6061-T6 Al - Alloy welded by Gas Metal Arc Welding

Abstract

The continuous use of mechanical structures is subjected to damage as a result of fatigue, overloading conditions, material degradation and unanticipated failures. Damage adversely affects the current or future performance of these infrastructures. Therefore, the interest in the ability to monitor the health of these structures and damage identification at the earliest possible stage is very important to ensure performance standards. It is common practice to monitor or predict the failure by development of methods that examine changes in the vibration parameter of the structure. Cantilever type plate joints are the very common mechanical structure, which is frequently be seen in structure. The main motive of this research work is to study the natural frequency on different mode shapes of a welded cantilever type joint structure for vibration based damage identification. CAD designing software Solid edge is used to model the welded plates and the study of welded plates is performed on Finite element analysis (FEA) based software ANSYS 14.5. Fixed- fixed constraint based boundary condition was used by constraining the connecting bolts hole. This assembly is tightly mounted on any component using the connecting bolts hole. The vibrational response for first nine modes was studied. This article presents a systematic procedure and details of the use of analytical modal analysis of a welded structure used for vibration based damage identification. It has been concluded from the results that analytical approach may be used or accepted for damage monitor, as the results are in good agreement