Design of One-piece Composite Propeller Shaft for a Rear Wheel Drive Automobile

후륜구동 자동차용 일체형 복합재료 동력전달축의 설계

Substituting composite structures for conventional metallic structures has many advantages because of higher specific stiffness and specific strength of composite materials. In this work, one-piece propeller shafts composed of carbon/epoxy composite and glass/epoxy one were designed and manufactured for a rear wheel drive automobile, which uses generally a steel two-piece propeller shaft. From the tests of the composite propeller shafts, it was found that the propeller shafts satisfied requirements of static torque transmission capability, torsional buckling capability and the first natural bending frequency and had 40% weight saving effect compared with steel propeller shaft.