DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF DRIVE SHAFT FOR HEAVY DUTY TRUCK

Abstract

Drive shafts in commercial heavy duty vehicle are subjected to cyclic loads due to variation in the torque demanded by the varying road loads. Cases of failure of the drive shaft of heavy duty trucks have been reported, which provides an opportunity to investigate the issue. In this project an attempt has been made on prediction of fatigue life of the drive shaft using FEA technique. The load spectrum acting on the drive shaft is calculated for specified terrain. Structural analysis was carried out on the FE model of drive shaft, and potential areas of high stress concentration are obtained. Von Mises stress, fatigue damage, fatigue life, factor of safety and total deformation are the results of fatigue analysis. It was observed that from the static analysis that the roots of the splines are the areas of high stress concentration. The fatigue analysis revels that the drive shaft fails in the region of high stress concentration as expected. The fatigue life of the component is found to be infinite for design pay load. The life of the drive shaft for 40% and 50% over load is 69806 kilometers and 20564 kilometers respectively. The present work can be used in automobile industry as a reference for predicting life of any component, in the drive line of the automobile subjected to non constant amplitude loading.