Weight Optimization and Finite Element Analysis of Drive Shaft for Rear-Wheel Drive Engine by using Composite Material

Drive shaft is the most important component to any power transmission application; automotive drive Shaft is one of this. 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. Substituting composite structures for conventional metallic structures has many advantages because of higher specific stiffness and strength of composite materials. This work deals with the replacement of conventional steel drive shafts with different material such as fiberglass epoxy, composite fiber, and hybrid material. The design parameters were optimized with the objective of minimizing the weight of composite drive shaft. The design optimization also improves the performance of 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 is carried using Hypermesh; Structural analysis of composite shaft will be carried out using ANSYS. Composite shaft is fabricated and tested to validate with numerical values.