Analysis of longitudinal wave propagation in a cracked rod by the spectral element method

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new finite spectral element of a cracked rod for damage detection. The proposed approach deals with the spectral analysis method as a means of solving the wave propagation problems in structures. The change of the wave propagation process due to a crack appearance, is examined by comparing the differences between the responses from damaged and undamaged rods. The influence of the crack growth for the wave propagation is also examined. The rod element was excited with different signals in order to determine the influence of the nature of the signal for the wave propagation process. The differences in the propagating waves allow to indicate the crack location in a very precise way. This fact is very promising for the future work on the damage detection field.