AUTOMOTIVE COMPOSITE DRIVESHAFTS: INVESTIGATION OF THE DESIGN VARIABLES EFFECTS

Abstract

Laminated composites, with their advantage of higher specific stiffness, gained substantiality in the field of torque carrying structures through many applications. Composite drive shafts offer the potential of lighter and longer life drive train with higher critical speed. In this study, finite element analysis performed to investigate the effects of fibers winding angle and layers stacking sequence on the critical speed, critical buckling torque and fatigue resistance. A configuration of a hybrid of one layer of carbon-epoxy (0o) and three layers of glass-epoxy (±45o, 90o) was used. The results show that, in changing carbon fibers winding angle from 0o to 90o, the loss in natural frequency is 44.5% and shifting from the best to the worst stacking sequence the DS loses 46.07% of its buckling strength, which gain the major concern over shear strength in DS design. The layers of ±45o angles are to be located far at inner side and that of cross-ply configuration located at top face with the 90o layer exposed to outside to increase the fatigue resistance, that the stacking sequence has an effect on fatigue properties.