Experimental assessment on the impact of cutouts on a hollow shaft system

Abstract

Hollow shafts are typically deployed in real world engineering application where strength to density ratio is highly desirable. Introduction of cutouts will also assist in achieving the same, where further material reduction is inevitable. This research work mainly focusses on assessing the impact of introducing cutouts on a hollow shaft system experimentally, followed by numerical validation. In this study the vibrational characteristics of a hollow shaft made up of linear elastic material is compared with a composite one for five different geometric profiles. Obtained results clearly reveal that introduction of cutouts and composite material significantly reduces the natural frequency of the system. Also, the experimental results are well in line with the values derived from the finite element method.