Lecture 20 Design of an Automotive Drive Shaft

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Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 40

 Design of an Automotive Drive Shaft
Background
• Composite drive shafts have been used in race car
and light truck applications for rear-wheel drive
• Traditional steel drive shafts are usually limited in
length due to vibration considerations
• Steel drive shafts are typically made in 2 sections,
connected by a support structure, bearings, and
universal joints
• The goal is to design a composite drive shaft that can
be made in one piece while satisfying the vibration
requirements
– Eliminates connecting assembly
– Weight savings
– Cost savings
Design example based on an example in Swanson (1997)

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 41

 Background
• Commercial products involve the choice of
– All CFRP
– Aluminium core with composite wrap
– GFRP/CFRP hybrid

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 42

 Design Objectives
• Technical requirements
– To be able to sustain the torsional design load with an
adequate factor of safety against fibre failure
– To have an adequate factor of safety against torsional
buckling
– To have a natural frequency in bending that meets the
requirements for prevention of whirling

Whirling occurs when the natural frequency of the shaft in

bending coincides with its rotational frequency – determined
by the engine speed and the transmission gearing – causing
the shaft to bow as it rotates

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 43

 Preliminary Design Notes and Specifications

• The lay-up (amount and types of fibres) must be

selected carefully to meet the design requirements
• Most designs involve an initial geometry selection
followed by analysis, then an iterative redesign
• A number of solutions exist and what follows is an
example of one design
Design Specifications:
Length of drive shaft L = 173 cm
Maximum mean radius r = 50.8 mm
Ultimate torque 2030 N-m
Torsional strength
678 N-m
(100k cycle fatigue)
Minimum bending natural frequency fn > 50 Hz

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 44

 Preliminary Material Selection
• To minimize costs, we will select GFRP to make up
the bulk of the volume of the part
• To increase the natural frequency in bending, we will
select CFRP in the 0° direction (axial)
• The properties of the available materials are:

X=0.25 x 827 = 206.75 MPa = 207 MPa

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 45

 Preliminary Laminate Selection
• After at least one selection-analysis-redesign loop,
the following orientations and thicknesses have been
determined:
– ±45° glass-fibre layers for torsional stiffness, totalling 0.381
mm thickness
– 90° (hoop) glass-fibre layers for preventing torsional
buckling, totalling 1.000 mm thickness
– 0° (axial) carbon-fibre layers for bending stiffness, totalling
1.016 mm thickness
• Total composite thickness: 2.334 mm

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 46

 Torsional Strength
• The design load for torsional strength involves fatigue
(high cycle repetitive load) and is 678 N-m
• The allowable stress in the ±45° plies is X=207 MPa
– The allowable value considers degradation due to fatigue
– The value is 25% of the ultimate strength of the ply
• The actual stress in the lay-up is calculated by:
– Constructing the [A] and [A'] matrices
– Calculating the overall laminate strains from [A'] and the
applied torsional load
– Transforming the strain into the fibre and matrix (material)
directions
– Multiplying the strains by the [Q] matrix to get the stresses

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 47

 Torsional Analysis
• The [A] and [A'] matrices have been calculated:
 141 7.34 0 
A  7.34 56.7 0  MPa - m
 0 0 13.3

 0.0182  0.00017 0 
A   0.00017 0.0203  
0  MPa - m 1

 0 0 0.0753 

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 48

 Torsional Analysis
• The design torque of 678 N-m gives an Nxy loading
on the laminate given by:

T 678 N - m
N xy    0.0435 MPa - m
2r 2 50.8 mm 
2 2

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 49

 Torsional Analysis
• The laminate strains are then:
x   0   0 
     

 h  A 0 
  0 
  N  0.0033 
 xh   xy   
• And, transforming the strains into the material
directions:
 1    x   0.5 0.5 0.5   0   0.00165 
       0    0.00165 

 2  T *  
 h   0 . 5 0 . 5  0 . 5    
     1.0 1.0 0  0.0033   0 
 12   xh      
• The resulting stresses are:
 1    1   64.3 
     

 2  Q  
 2    8 . 17  MPa
     0 
 12  12    50
Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design
 Torsional Analysis
• Now, using the maximum stress failure criterion:
 1  64.3 MPa X  207 MPa
• The resulting factor of safety is 3.2 for torsional
strength

• Now, consider torsional bucking

• The critical torque Tc that causes torsional buckling of
a thin-walled orthotropic tube is given by:
32
3 1 4 t 
Tc  2r t 0.272  E x E h  
2
   
r 
where t is the wall thickness, Ex and Eh are the
average moduli in the axial and hoop directions

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 Torsional Buckling
• For the current analysis, t=0.318+1.0+1.016=2.334 mm
• The effective laminate moduli can be obtained (assuming a
symmetric lay-up):
1 1
 
Ex    23.54 GPa

tA11 2.334  10 3 m  0.0182MPa - m
1

1 1
 
Eh    21.11 GPa

tA22 2.334  10 3 m  0.0203MPa - m
1

• Now, computing Tc:

Tc  2196 N - m
• The design torque of 2030 N-m gives a factor of safety of 1.08
• Without the hoop fibres it would be difficult to get Eh high
enough to satisfy the requirements

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 52

 Natural Frequency (Bending)
• The natural frequency is likely to be a significant
design driver and is likely to require fibres in the axial
direction to achieve sufficient axial stiffness
• In this design, 0° CFRP plies are used to provide this
stiffness while minimizing the weight
• If the drive shaft is idealized as a beam pinned at
both ends, the expression for the fundamental natural
frequency is:
 E xI x
fn  2
2L A
where  is the mass density, A is the cross-sectional
area of the beam (ie A is the mass per unit length of
the drive shaft) and Ix is the moment of inertia of the
cross-section in bending along the x-axis

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 53

 Natural Frequency (Bending)
• For a thin-walled tube:

Ix 
4
r o
4

 ri 4  r 3t  0.961 10 6 mm 4
where ro and ri are the outer and inner radii of the
tube and r is the mean radius
• For our tube, the effective mass per unit length is:

A  A GFRP  A CFRP  2r t GFRP  t CFRP   1.325 kg/m

• So now, the fundamental natural frequency is:

fn 
 23.54  10 
N/mm 2 0.961 10 6 mm 4
3

21730 mm  1.325  10 6 Ns2 /mm 2
2

fn  68.5 Hz

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 54

 Natural Frequency
• The natural frequency of the design candidate is
higher than the minimum required frequency (50 Hz)
resulting in a factor of safety of 1.37
• This high natural frequency cannot be satisfied
without the carbon fibre plies in the axial direction

• Note that the mass per unit length is 1.325 kg/m and
the resulting mass of the whole drive shaft is 2.3 kg
• With the assumed lay-up, the drive shaft contains
56.5% GFRP and 43.5% CFRP
• Assuming a cost of $2.64/kg for the glass plies and
$26.4/kg for the carbon plies the total cost of the
drive shaft would be $27.50

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 55

 Design Notes
• The current design iteration satisfies the design
requirements
• A number of other possibilities exist for the given
design specifications
• The parameters are interactive in the sense that, for
example, adding 90° GFRP to increase buckling
resistance, or adding ±45° GFRP to increase the
torque carrying capability, the mass per unit length of
the shaft increases – which results in a lower
fundamental natural frequency in bending which must
be accommodated by adding additional 0° CFRP
layers

Aero 4608 Composite Materials - Lecture 14c - Design 56