Welded Steel Tube Transmission Components

The automotive industry is facing a major challenge to incorporate additional powertrain function into smaller more complex packages to meet mandated fuel economy standards and ever increasing world wide competition.

An important tool available to meet these challenges is the use of latest Welded Steel Tube technology to develop new concepts for manufacture of the more complex automatic transmission races, gears, hubs and shafts of the future. Advantages of Welded Steel Tubing over seamless tubing, forgings and castings include:

• Closer raw material tolerances which significantly reduce material waste.
• Higher productivity, lower tool cost and reduced scrap resulting from lighter machining cuts and/or elimination of entire machining operations.
• Complex part shape cold formability directly from commercially available material without the need for prior truing operations.
• Stronger more durable components.

This paper includes manufacturing information regarding a transmission hub and a transaxle shaft which demonstrate typical NEAR NET SHAPE advantages of automatic transmission/transaxle parts manufactured from Welded Steel Tubing.