Developing a hybrid, carbon/glass fiber-reinforced, epoxy composite automotive drive shaft

• Main Authors: Abu Talib, Abdul Rahim, Ali, Aidy, Badie, Mohamed A., Che Lah, Nur Azida, Golestaneh, Amirreza Fahim
• Format: Article
• Language: English; English
• Published: Elsevier 2010
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/11799/1/Developing%20a%20hybrid.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/11799/

In this study, a finite element analysis was used to design composite drive shafts incorporating carbon and glass fibers within an epoxy matrix. A configuration of one layer of carbon–epoxy and three layers of glass–epoxy with 0°, 45° and 90° was used. The developed layers of structure consists of four layers stacked as [+45glass°/-45glass°/0carbon°/90glass°]. The results show that, in changing carbon fibers winding angle from 0° to 90°, the loss in the natural frequency of the shaft is 44.5%, while, shifting from the best to the worst stacking sequence, the drive shaft causes a loss of 46.07% in its buckling strength, which represents the major concern over shear strength in drive shaft design.