Cracked shaft detection and diagnostics: A literature review

Cracks in shafts have long been identified as factors limiting the safe and reliable operation of turbomachines. They can sometimes result in catastrophic failure of equipment (rotor bursts) and, more often, in costly process upsets, repairs and premature scrapping and replacement of equipment. Cracked shafts still pose a significant and real threat to equipment in spite of the great advances made in the areas of metallurgy, manufacturing and design. In the past two decades, much research and many resources have gone into developing various on-line and off-line diagnostic techniques to effectively detect cracks before they cause serious damage. Because of the enormous amount of ongoing research in this area (more than 500 technical papers have been published in English alone in the past 30 years), there is a real need to periodically condense and summarize the information. This paper reviews literature on cracked shaft detection and diagnostics published after 1990.