Higher Order Coherences for fatigue crack detection

Higher Order Coherences (normalized Higher Order Spectra) are the tools to identify the relationship between the different harmonic components in a signal. The vibration of a structure having a crack also generates several harmonics of the exciting frequency due to its breathing (closing and opening) behaviour which is a non-linear phenomenon. Presently two types of the HOC — namely, the Bicoherence and the Tricoherence, are used for the fatigue crack detection. This paper presents the observations made on the HOC on the numerically simulated experiment of a cantilever beam with and without cracks. The robustness of the HOC in the crack detection even for the noisy response vibration data has also been brought out.