Design of Automobile Driveshaft using Carbon/Epoxy and Kevlar/Epoxy Composites

摘要

Use of advanced composites has resulted in remarkable achievements in many fields including aviation, marine and automobile engineering, medicine, prosthetics and sports, in terms of improved fatigue and corrosion resistances, high specific strength and specific modulus and reduction in energy requirements owing to reduction in weight. The aim of this work is to replace the conventional steel driveshaft of automobiles with an appropriate composite driveshaft. The conventional driveshafts are made in two pieces for reducing the bending natural frequency, whereas the composite shafts can be made as single-piece shafts, thus reducing the overall weight. Carbon/Epoxy and Kevlar/Epoxy composites were designed and analysed for their appropriateness in terms of torsional strength, bending natural frequency and torsional buckling by comparing them with the conventional steel driveshaft under the same grounds of design constraints and the best-suited composite was recommended. Light has been thrown upon the aspects like mass saving, number of plies and ply distribution.