These days, lightweight materials are in huge demand. One of the promising solutions for meeting this rising demand is looking for fibre-reinforced polymer composites. Fibre composite materials due to their nature of lightweight, they are gaining attention for preparation of products and appliances in the fields of medicine, household appliances, automotive, sports goods, aerospace etc. This research work aims to replace a metallic drive shaft by a two-piece composite drive shaft. Drive shaft plays a key role in the transmission of power in an automobile. In this research work, an effort is made to replace two-piece drive shaft made of steel with a single-piece drive shaft made of E-glass fibre/epoxy composite. Material behaviour is considered as linear isotropic for metals and orthotropic for the composite shaft. Reduction of weight of an automobile, with no compromise in cost, reliability and quality, is the main target of automobile manufacturers. Reduction in the weight of drive shaft also contributes to the overall reduction in weight of the vehicle. Fuel consumption of the vehicle is directly dependent on vehicle weight. In urban drive, fuel consumption increases considerably with an increase in the vehicle. The drive shaft of a vehicle can be designed with composite materials, to reduce its weight and increase the first mode of natural frequency reducing fuel consumption and avoiding resonance failure. In the process of drive shaft design, various stacking sequences can be used for reducing the bending stresses during its operation. The drive shaft model is prepared by CATIA and analysed using ANSYS. Given the amount of torque transmission, the dimensions of the drive shaft were calculated. The result had shown a mass reduction of 46%. In conclusion, the two-piece drive shaft can be replaced by single-piece composite made resulted in weight reduction which can also eliminate part complexity. Drive shaft optimum design with composite materials is achieved, which contributed to the reduction of fuel consumption without compromising the strength of the component.
Design and Analysis of Composite Drive Shaft for Rear-Wheel-Drive Vehicle
Lect.Notes Mechanical Engineering
2021-05-18
10 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
Double-shaft rear-single-wheel drive electric automobile
European Patent Office | 2015
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