Prediction of the torsional strength of the hybrid aluminum/composite drive shaft

A hybrid aluminum/composite is an advanced composite material that consists of aluminum tube wound onto outside by layers of composite material. The result from this combination is a hybrid shaft that has a higher torque transmission capability, a higher fundamental natural bending frequency and less noise and vibration. This paper investigates the maximum torsion capacity of the hybrid aluminum/composite shaft for different winding angle, number of layers and stacking sequences. The hybrid shaft consists of aluminum tube wound outside by E-glass and carbon fibers/epoxy composite. The finite element method has been used to analyze the hybrid shaft under static torsion. ANSYS finite element software was used to perform the numerical analysis for the hybrid shaft. Full scale hybrid specimen was analyzed. Elasto-plastic properties were used for aluminum tube and linear elastic for composite materials. The results show that the static torque capacity is significantly affected by changing the winding angle, stacking sequences and number of layers. The maximum static torsion capacity of aluminum tube wound outside by six layers of carbon fiber/epoxy composite at winding angle of 45° was 295 N m. Good agreement was obtained between the finite element predictions and experimental results.