Weight Optimization of Drive Shaft Using Various Composite Materials in FEA

Abstract

In sesctor of Automobile Engineering the power transmission through the shaft is very much important and in any power transmission, the drive shaft plays very important role. The torque generated through the engine of vehicle is converted in usable motive force and transmitted a drive shaft, is a mechanical part that transmits the torque generated by a vehicle's engine into usable motive force to propel the vehicle. By replacing the composite structure with conventional metallic structure one can achieve more advantages with respect to the strength and specific stiffness which is very high in composite material. In current study the fiber composite, fiber glass epoxy and hybrid material is used instead of conventional metallic drive shaft. The optimized design parameters is induced with the composite drive shaft which give the objective of reduction in weight of the drive shaft as well as it enhance the overall performance of the drive shaft. Present work deals with FEA analysis of composite shaft with different composite material. It includes the modeling of shaft in CATIA. The meshing and boundary condition application will be carried using Hypermesh; Structural analysis of composite shaft will be carried out using ANSYS. Composite shaft will be fabricated and tested to validate with numerical values.