Design and Analysis of Composite Propeller Shaft

Abstract
Propeller shaft is an important component in power transmission of an automobile. Conventional
steel drive shafts have limitations of weight and low critical speed. To get the maximum
efficiency for power transmission, weight reduction of the drive shaft is most important. Few
researchers suggested the optimum stacking sequence & fiber orientation angles of the composite
layer for manufacturing of composite shaft, which results in reduction of mass and increase in
torque transmission capacity. The focus of this work is to study the effect of carbon fiber on the
properties of the composite formed by changing volume fraction as the cost also impact on
acceptance of the materials. This work represents the replacement of two piece conventional
metallic drive shaft with the single piece composite drive shaft. Initially, design of shaft is done
concentrating on natural frequency, buckling torque, and fiber orientation. Manufacturing of the
composite drive shaft is made by using composite of carbon fiber & epoxy resin. Experimental
testing is carried out on scaled model to find the torsion behavior & natural frequency of
composite drive shaft. Static analysis and modal analysis is done by using Ansys software.
Analytical results of natural frequency are compared with the results of modal analysis on Ansys
& FFT analyzer.

Keywords Composite material, Carbon fiber, Epoxy resin, FFT analyser, Volume fraction.

Introduction
Basically composite material is a combination of two or more number of materials. History of
advance composites begin in 1970s in aerospace industries, but now a days after only four
decades, it is developed in most of the industries. There is possibility that increase in composite
material characteristics using the latest technology and various manufacturing methods have
raised its application range. Along with progress in technology, metallic parts are replaced by
composite materials in various industries. A Propeller shaft is the connection between the
transmission and the rear axle of the vehicle. The entire driveline of the car is composed of
several components, each with rotating mass. The two-piece steel drive shaft consists of three
universal joints, a center supporting bearing and a bracket, which increases the total weight of an
automotive vehicle and decreases fuel efficiency. The power is lost because it takes more energy
to spin heavier parts. This energy loss can be reduced by decreasing the amount of rotating mass.
A one-piece composite shaft can be manufactured so as to reduce the weight & satisfy the
vibration requirements. Lower rotating weight transmits more of available power. This eliminates
all the assembly, connecting the two piece steel shafts and thus minimizes the overall weight,
vibrations and the total cost. Due to the weight reduction, fuel consumption will be reduced.
According to survey it is found that around 17-22% of total energy developed by the engine is
lost due to weight of the vehicle. Due to this reason many researches are going on to reduce the
weight of the vehicle by using light weight parts such as coupling, chassis, shaft with holes &
composite materials parts. This work is also related with the same concept to reduce the weight
of the vehicle with the application of the lightweight materials such as carbon fiber and Epoxy
resin. Composite materials have high damping capacity and hence they produce less vibration
and noise with the ability of good corrosion resistance. Composite structures have longer fatigue
life than steel or aluminum shaft. Composite materials can be tailored to efficiently meet the
design requirements of strength, stiffness and composite drive shafts weight less than steel or
aluminum. The focus of the work will be to reduce the weight of the propeller shaft by
considering various constraints such as cost, torque transmission capacity, speed of rotation and
space available i.e. diameter of shaft. According to previous researches many have done the
various experiments to reduce the weight by changing the ply thickness, fiber orientation angle,
number of plies but until now no one has studied the effect of carbon fiber on the properties of
the composite formed as the cost also impact on acceptance of the materials so the main aim of
this work to minimize the cost and weight with the given working constraints.

Problem Statement
Almost all automobiles (at least those which correspond to design with rear wheel drive and
front engine installation) have transmission shafts. The two-piece steel propeller shaft consists of
three universal joints, a center supporting bearing and a bracket, which increases the total weight
of an automotive vehicle and decreases fuel efficiency. The power is lost because it takes more
energy to spin heavier parts. This energy loss can be reduced by decreasing the amount of
rotating mass. The weight reduction of the shaft can have a certain role in the general weight
reduction of the vehicle and is a highly desirable goal, if it can be achieve without increase in
cost and decrease in quality and reliability. It is possible to achieve design of composite drive

shaft with less weight to increase the first natural frequency of the shaft and to decrease the
bending stresses. By doing the same, maximize the torque transmission and torsional buckling
capabilities.

Literature Survey
Composites:
The theoretical details of composite materials and composite structures are extensively reviewed.
The Spicer U-Joint Division of Dana Corporation for the Ford econoline van models developed
the first composite propeller shaft in 1985. The general motor pickups trucks, which adopted the
Spicer product, enjoyed the demand three times as projected sales in its first year. John W.
Weeton et al. briefly described the application of composites in the field of automotive industry
to manufacture composite elliptic springs, drive shafts and leaf springs. Beard more and Johnson
discus the potential for composites in structural automotive applications from a structural point
of view. Pollard studied the possibilities of the polymer Matrix composites usage in driveline
applications. Faust et.al, described the considerable interest on the part of both the helicopter
and automobile industries in the development of lightweight drive shafts.
Procedure for finding the elastic moduli of anisotropic laminated composites is explained by
Azzi V. D et. Al.
Torsional Buckling
The problem of general instability under torsional load has been studied by many investigators.
Greenhill obtained a solution for the torsional stability of a long shaft. The first analysis of
Buckling of thin walled tubes under torsion made by Schwerin, but his analysis did not agree
with his experimental data. However, all these papers were limited to isotropic materials.
As far as orthotropic materials are concerned, general theories of orthotropic shells shells were
developed by Ambartsumyan and Dong et al. Cheng and Ho analyzed more generally, the
buckling problem of non-homogeneous anisotropic cylindrical shells under combined axial,
radial and torsional loads with all four boundary condition at each end of the cylinder. Lein-wen
chen et al analysed the stability behavior of rotating composite shaft under axial compressive
loads. A theoretical analysis was presented for determining the bucking torque of a cylindrical
hallow shaft with layers of arbitrarily laminated composite material by means of various thin
shell theories. Bauchau et al, measured the torsional buckling loads of graphite shaft, which were
in good agreement with theoretical prediction based on genral shell theory including elastic
coupling effects and transverse shearing deformation.
Lateral Vibrations
Bauchau developed procedure for optimum design of high speed composite drive shaft made of
laminates to increase the first natural frequency of the shaft and decrease the bending stress.
Shell theory based on the critical speed analysis of drive shaft has been presented by Dos Reis et
al. Patrica L. Hetherington investigated the dynamic behavior of supercritical composite drive
for helicopter applications. Ganpathi et al extensively studied the non linear free flexural

vibration of laminated circular cylindrical shell. A method of analysis involving Loves first
approximation theory and Ritz procedure on natural frequency of thin orthotropic laminated
cylindrical shells was presented. A first order theory was presented by Lee to determine the
natural frequencies of an orthotropic shell. Nowinski. J. L. investigated the non linear transverse
vibration of elastic orthotropic shells using Von- Karman- Tsien equations.
Optimization
The optimum design of laminated plates and shells subjected to constraint on strength, stiffness,
buckling load, and fundamental natural frequencies were examined. Methods were proposed for
the determination of the optimal ply angle variation through the thickness of symmetric angle ply
shells of uniform thickness. The main features of GAs and several ways in which they can solved
difficult design problem were discussed by Gabor Renner et al. Raphael T. Haftka discussed
extensively about stacking sequence optimization for bucking of laminated plates by integer
programming. The use of GA to optimize the stacking sequence of composite laminates for
buckling load maximization was studied. Various genetic parameters including the population
size the probability of mutation and probability of crossover were optimized by numerical
experiments.
Design of conventional steel shaft
The steel Propeller shaft should satisfy three design specifications such as torque transmission
capability, buckling torque capability and bending natural frequency. The Propeller shaft outer
diameter should not exceed 100 mm due to space limitations. Here the specifications of Tata 407
pickup are considered for study having outer diameter of 68 mm.

Table 1. Mechanical Properties of steel (SM45C)

Table 2. Analytical result for steel shaft

Expected Outcome
The expected outcome is to show the composite propeller shaft is having better results than the
steel propeller shaft.

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