Design, Comparison and Analysis of a Composite Drive Shaft for an Automobile
Roberto Magalhães
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Design, Comparison and Analysis of a Composite Drive Shaft for an Automobile
Abstract
Almost all automobiles (at least those that correspond to the design with rear-wheel drive and front-engine installation) have drive shafts.
Driveshaft weight reduction can play a role in overall vehicle weight reduction and is a highly desirable objective if it can be achieved without increasing cost and decreasing quality and reliability. It is possible to design a composite driveshaft with less weight to increase the shaft's first natural frequency and decrease bending stresses using various stacking sequences. By doing the same, torque transmission is maximized and torsional buckling capabilities are also maximized. This work deals with the replacement of a conventional steel drive shaft with high-strength carbon drive shafts for an automotive application.
PROPELLER SHAFT 3D MODEL CREATED USING SOLIDWORKS
A 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.
The main objective of the present study is:
1. Modeling of high strength carbon/epoxy composite drive shaft using ANSYS.
2. Static and buckling analyzes shall be performed on the finite element model of the high strength carbon/epoxy composite drive shaft using ANSYS.
3. To investigate
a) Stress and strain distributions in high-strength carbon composite drive shafts.
b) Calculate the mass reduction when using High Strength Carbon.
Implant and adjacent bone modeling
The 3D model of the propeller shaft is made using Solidworks, which enables automation of the design and product development processes and thus provides an optimal design. The main dimensions of the propeller shaft considered for the present analysis are the following: –
A. Hollow shaft
I. Hollow shaft outer diameter = Solid shaft outer diameter
doh = 100mm,dih= 50mm K=dih/doh=0.5 L= 900mm
Finite Element Model
For the present study, ANSYS Workbench 12.0 is used. The propeller shaft model is imported into the Workbench. The imported model is merged using tetrahedral and hexahedral elements.
Loading and boundary conditions
The maximum load condition for an axle is the condition in which the movement of the differential (wheel) stops and the gearbox comes into action. Therefore, we are applying three boundary conditions, a moment of 350,000 Nm (counterclockwise), a rotational speed of 650 rad/s (counterclockwise), and a fixed end.
PROPELLER SHAFT 3D MODEL CREATED USING SOLIDWORKS
