Design and Natural Frequencies Analysis of Automotive Drive Shaft with Composite Materials

Abstract

An automotive propeller shaft, or drive shaft, transmits power from the engine to differential gears of rear wheel-driving vehicle. Automotive drive Shaft is a very important component of vehicle. The main concept of our project is to reduce the weight of automotive drive shaft with the utilization of composite material over the conventional steel material for drive shaft. Composite materials have been used in automotive components because of their properties such as low weight, high specific stiffness, corrosion free, ability to produce complex shapes, high specific strength and high impact energy absorption etc. As the automotive drive shaft is a very important component of vehicle, the shaft has to be designed to meet the stringent design requirements for automotives. The drive shaft assembly is modelled using catia software. In present work an attempt has been to estimate deflection, stresses under subjected loads & natural frequencies using FEA and a comparison is made with conventional steel drive shaft. Materials are taken aluminium boron epoxy, boron fibers, boron nitride.