The customer perception of ride comfort with vehicle performance is the most important aspect in a vehicle design. The ride comfort and vehicle performance are influenced by driveline components i.e. propeller shaft phase angle, inclination angle and critical frequency of the driveline system. The optimization of the driveline system is essential to ensure the efficient and smooth power transfer. Propeller shaft is one of the critical components in the driveline to influence the vehicle performance.
Propeller shaft characteristics influenced by several factors like vehicle max torque, propeller shaft joint type, materials properties, UJ phase and inclination angle and shaft unbalance value. The optimization of the above parameter within the tolerance limit enables to meet the required performance standard. Various methodologies are available to optimize these parameters to enhance the vehicle performance and comfort leads to customer satisfactions. This study focuses on the analytical optimization of the propeller shaft’s universal joint (UJ) phase and inclination angle and validated at vehicle level.
An analytical model was employed to evaluate the velocity fluctuations across the full rotation of the propeller shaft by considering the different UJ phase angles (0° − 360°) and inclination angles (1° − 5°). It was observed from the study that optimization of these parameter improves the vibration performance and decreases the velocity fluctuations. The results shows that the well optimized propeller shaft will enhance smoothness in the driveline systems, reduction in NVH levels, vehicle performance and ride comfort. This study suggests the importance of the precise geometry alignment in driveline design and provide the further refinement methodology.