Failure Examples Study for Tribological Characteristics of Drive Shaft and Axle System in Vehicles

Department of Automotive Engineering, Daelim University College*Department of Automotive Engineering, Osan University**Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chungang University(Received November 1, 2013; Revised November 20, 2013; Accepted December 1, 2013)Abstracts − This study examined the tribological characteristics of the drive shaft and axle system in vehicles.The first drive shaft example contained end play for a CV joint that transferred part of the transmission powerto the wheel. The joint part of the drive shaft was deformed because of reduced durability due to wear. Thus,vibrations caused the body to shake and become unbalanced when the drive shaft transferred the power. The sec-ond example was the cross-section of a shaft that connected the slip-connection of the propeller shaft on the inputside to the yoke flange of the output side; the durability was reduced because of corrosion. End play caused bywear between the bearing and cross-section shaft appeared to cause shaking. In the third example, a grease leakreduced lubrication and thus caused damage to the hub bearing and inside the knuckle. The failure was producedby sticking. The fourth example had noise produced by the gear and gear transfer. This was due to the backlashof the pinion and few ring gears for the differential gear. Therefore, drive shaft and axle systems must be thor-oughly checked and managed to minimize and reduce failure phenomena.Keywords − drive shaft (구동 축), CV joint (등속 조인트), propeller shaft (프로펠라 샤프트), differential gear(차동기어), hub bearing (허브 베어링)