OPTIMAL DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE DRIVE SHAFT FOR A LIGHT COMMERCIAL VEHICLE
Keywords:
Composite Materials, Drive Shaft, Material property, FEA, ANSYS and Pro-EAbstract
Almost all automobile vehicles having transmission shafts. Present time the main issue of automobile industry
are weight reduction. The weight reduction of the drive shaft can have a certain role in the general weight reductio n of
the vehicle and is a highly desirable goal. Substituting composite structures for conventional metallic structures has many
advantages because of higher specific stiffness and strength of composite materials. The advanced composite materials
such as graphite, carbon, Kevlar and Glass with suitable resins are widely used because of their high specific strength and
high specific modulus. The achievement of weight reduction with adequate improvement of mechanical properties has
made composite a very good replacement material for conventional steel drive shaft. Advanced composite materials seem
ideally suited for long power drive shaft applications. The automotive industry is exploiting composite material
technology for structural components construction in order to obtain the reduction of the weight without decrease in
vehicle quality and reliability. It is known that energy conservation is one of the most important objectives in vehicle
design and reduction of weight is one of the most effective measures to obtain this result. Actually, there is almost a
direct proportionality between the weight of a vehicle and its fuel consumption, particularly in city driving. This present
work includes, modelling and analysis of both the steel and composite drive shaft by changing in diameter have been
done using Pro-E and ANSYS 12.1 software and concludes that the use of composite materials for drive shaft would
induce less amount of stress which additionally reduces the weight of the vehicle.
