Design, Comparison and Analysis of a Composite Drive Shaft for an Automobile
Abstract
PROPELLER SHAFT 3D MODEL CREATED USING SOLIDWORKSA drive shaft, also known as a propeller shaft or cardan shaft, is a mechanical part that transmits the torque generated by a vehicle's engine into usable driving force to propel the vehicle. Now the one-day two-piece steel shaft is mainly used as the transmission shaft. The two-piece steel drive shaft consists of three universal joints, a center support bearing and a bracket, which increases the overall weight of an automotive vehicle and decreases fuel efficiency. This work deals with the replacement of conventional two-piece steel drive shafts with a single-piece E-glass/epoxy composite drive shaft for automotive application. The basic requirements considered here are total strain, stress, and strain distribution in the modified propeller shaft model. The analysis is also repeated applying normal structural steel which is the usual material for manufacturing the drive shaft and the results obtained are compared. The results obtained in this study show that the modified model is compact and due to the use of the Epoxy component the data obtained is satisfactory. A complete one-piece hybrid composite drive shaft is designed using a 3D modeling software called SOLIDWORKS 2016 and its structural behavior is optimally analyzed using a finite element analysis software called ANSYS WORKBENCH R 2016.







