Search

The fiber-reinforced composite (FRP) shaft need to consider vibration performance of the transmission system to improve work efficiency, comfort, service life and safety. The fiber materials and tubes containing metal connectors are important parts of the FRP shaft so that the study on the vibration performance of these two key components is of great significance for an in-depth understanding of the vibration performance of shafts. The finite element analysis (FEA), pulse vibration excitation technique (PVET) and formula computing were used to study the effect of the vibration characteristics of shafts. This study revealed that increasing the modulus of the fiber is one of the effective methods to increase the natural frequency of the FRP tube and the damping ratio of the carbon FRP tubes were slightly smaller compared with basalt and glass fiber. The FEA of FRP tube results were not distinct from the measured and calculated results so that these FEA results were relatively reliable. The damping of the tube with metal flanges at both ends were weaken compared the FRP tube. This work will be of great significance to the optimization design of the vibration performance of FRP shafts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metal connector and tube of the composite drive shaft were bonded together generally. However, the glued shafts showed numerous risks due to the instability of chemical glues. To avoid potential risks, filament winding with integrated flanges was proposed to prepare carbon fiber-reinforced composite (CFRP) drive shafts in this study. The natural frequency and damping of CFRP shafts were investigated by FEA and experiment. Results revealed that the natural frequency of CFRP shafts embedded in metal flanges is slightly lower than that of the glued CFRP shafts. The metal flanges did not affect the changing trend of the natural frequency with various fiber ply angles or thicknesses, and the damping had little effect on the natural frequency. The natural frequency of CFRP tubes and drive shafts was predicted using FEA and agreed well with the experimental results. The results of this study will be of great significance in the design and application of CFRP drive shafts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To satisfy the light weight requirements of vehicles owing to the aggravation of environmental pollution, carbon-fiber (CF)-reinforced epoxy composites have been chosen as a substitute for traditional metal counterparts. Since the current processing methods such as resin transfer molding (RTM) and compression molding (CM) have many limitations, an integrated and optimal molding method needs to be developed. Herein, we prepared high-performance composites by an optimized molding method, namely compression resin transfer molding (CRTM), which combines the traditional RTM and CM selectively and comprehensively. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and rotational rheometry were performed to optimize the molding parameters of CRTM. In addition, metallurgical microscopy test and mechanical tests were performed to evaluate the applicability of CRTM. The experimental results showed that the composites prepared by CRTM displayed superior mechanical properties than those of the composites prepared by RTM and CM. The composite prepared by CRTM showed up to 42.9%, 41.2%, 77.3%, and 5.3% increases in tensile strength, bending strength, interlaminar shear strength, and volume fraction, respectively, of the composites prepared by RTM. Meanwhile, the porosity decreased by 45.2 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]