solid vs tube drive shaft

[KiwiBacon]

Care to place money on that ?

So, about that money you now owe me.

[Ice]

lol its a basic understanding in mechanical power transmission

perhaps thats why i make the things and you guys just talk about them ?

[redzook]

axle are solid because most axle splines are rolled on not machined.

so you are saying hollow axles would be stronger then solid?

yes tim they will take more Torque before failing,

as love mud said i thought they gun drilled axles simply for weight and that kind of stuff.

and what is it with web wheelers shooting our mouths off?
do u even have a working 4wd?

also axles with no give, ha ha. u will see here how much twist is in quite a few different axles before they snap let me guess u think they heat treat axles and cv's to make it harder?

[KiwiBacon]

lol its a basic understanding in mechanical power transmission

perhaps thats why i make the things and you guys just talk about them ?

Yes and it's a basic understanding you've got horribly wrong. Guess that's why I design machinery and you just make it.

How much money are you willing to put where your mouth is?

[Ice]

lol its a basic understanding in mechanical power transmission

perhaps thats why i make the things and you guys just talk about them ?

Yes and it's a basic understanding you've got horribly wrong. Guess that's why I design machinery and you just make it.

How much money are you willing to put where your mouth is?

Enough that you will be selling your house lol, we are talking about a shaft which is subject to shock loading there are no other forces on it. you seem have lost the plot along the line somewhere, sure axels twist and then stay twisted. if it was such a good thing to run a solid drive shaft there would be millions of cars driving around with them now wouldnt there, or do you want to bet your house against the car/ truck manufacturers as well ?

armchair engineer perhaps ? hahahaha or your keeping me in a job lol


local recyling plant kept breaking solid shafts, they are replaced with hollowbar with soild ends welded in much like a tailshaft. they dont fail anymore i wonder why ??




yes tim the heat treating it to soften them so they arnt so brittle and take the shock loading better but you know this anyways and you know im still driving the same pos hzj75 ute ive had since the swb

[AussieCJ7]

Thanks for all those who replied including those trying to prove how big they are

for us mere mortals based on an excellent article on POR and the stuff from here the summary of my understanding is

ref http://www.google.com.au/search?q=pirat ... =firefox-a top link it is a .doc

1. Tube will be stronger than solid for the same mass around 40% stronger
2. For the same diameter and material solid and is stronger than tube
3. The amount given up in strength by tube is far less than the weight saving of tube
4. Weight makes balance harder and will have a lower critical torque vs speed

so you need the lightest drive shaft with the most strength and this is why you use tube

[cruiser60series]

for example:
Comparing a tube with inner diameter of 90% that of the outer diameter. And a solid shaft of the same outer diameter.

The tube will have about 40% torque capacity of the solid tube. So fairly weak in comparison

but... with about 20% of the mass of the solid tube.

Tube is much more efficient. (40% as strong, 20% as light)

But if it is simply a case of comparing the two of same diameter solid is stronger.

I also worked out that the weight of a solid drive shaft (i estimated diameter 10cm and 1.5m long) would be 92kg!! (though to withstand the same amount of torque the diameter doesn't have to be as big)

I actually worked this out from first principles and didn't pull these numbers out of my arrse.

[KiwiBacon]

Enough that you will be selling your house lol,

Put a figure down.

[KiwiBacon]

Thanks for all those who replied including those trying to prove how big they are

for us mere mortals based on an excellent article on POR and the stuff from here the summary of my understanding is

ref http://www.google.com.au/search?q=pirat ... =firefox-a top link it is a .doc

1. Tube will be stronger than solid for the same mass around 40% stronger
2. For the same diameter and material solid and is stronger than tube
3. The amount given up in strength by tube is far less than the weight saving of tube
4. Weight makes balance harder and will have a lower critical torque vs speed

so you need the lightest drive shaft with the most strength and this is why you use tube

Yes your four points are perfectly correct. But they're discussing a tube which is bigger than a solid bar.

When limited by diameter (i.e. tube and bar the same OD) the bar always wins.

Yes that includes shock-loading. I'm waiting to see how big ICE's pockets are before saying much more.