Propeller Shafts, Joints and Axle

Propeller shaft refers to the shaft (a long hollow cylindrical rod), that transmits
power from one point (example - the output main shaft of Gear box) to
another point (example – the small gear at the differential that rotates the
larger ring gear) separated by a distance.
This shaft is also known as drive shaft, driving shaft, Cardan shaft or even
simply prop shaft.

Image courtesy: www.ClearMechanic.com

The component in orange, is the propeller shaft in above figure.

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Universal Joints
Consider a case where in a car, the front tyres (and hence, front half of the
vehicle), gets lifted up. This is common when a car moves over a speed
breaker. Now if the engine is located in the front half of the car, then there will
be a need for transmitting power at an angle.
So what can we do? Use bevel gears?
No! Since, Bevel gears can transmit power only at a fixed angle and not at
variable angles – not all speed breaker are of same heights! For such cases, we
use another mechanical component called Universal Joints.

A typical Universal Joint Computer Diagram showing the parts clearly.

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Axles – Now after Differential the power gets transmitted to wheels using
shafts similar to propeller shaft. It is known as rear-axle and front-axle for the
rear and front wheels respectively. The differential also divides the axles in two
half, which are then known as left and right half-axles.
Here again similar joints are provided at the ends before connecting it to
wheels. This is done to take in account of the misalignment occurring when
one of the rear wheels gets lifted up instead of both.

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