An investigation into hybrid carbon/glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite automotive drive shaft

Abstract This paper examines the effect of fiber orientation angles and stacking sequence on the torsional stiffness, natural frequency, buckling strength, fatigue life and failure modes of composite tubes. Finite element analysis (FEA) has been used to predict the fatigue life of composite drive shaft (CDS) using linear dynamic analysis for different stacking sequence. Experimental program on scaled woven fabric composite models was carried out to investigate the torsional stiffness. FEA results showed that the natural frequency increases with decreasing fiber orientation angles. The CDS has a reduction equal to 54.3% of its frequency when the orientation angle of carbon fibers at one layer, among other three glass ones, transformed from 0° to 90°. On the other hand, the critical buckling torque has a peak value at 90° and lowest at a range of 20–40° when the angle of one or two layers in a hybrid or all layers in non-hybrid changed similarly. Experimentally, composite tubes of fiber orientation angles of ±45° experience higher load carrying capacity and higher torsional stiffness. Specimens of carbon/epoxy or glass/epoxy composites with fiber orientation angles of ±45° show catastrophic failure mode. In a hybrid of both materials, [±45°] configuration influenced the failure mode.