Investigation of The Effect of Reduced Shank Thickness of Friction Welded Yoke Shaft on Strength

Abstract

Usage of friction welding method on the joints provides many advantages such as cost reduction, weight reduction and higher quality. The yoke shaft produced by rotary friction welding (RFW) involves a yoked part and a hollow round bar which are welded to each other. And so, no additional drilling method used in the way of removing material from the centre of the yoke shaft, is required to reduce the weight. The weight is inherently reduced thanks to hollow round bar used in RFW method. It is possible to use a friction welded yoke shaft in a wide range of wall thickness by removing material from the shank diameter for different applications. At this point, the key factor is strength of the friction welded yoke shaft with reduced wall thickness on the shank diameter. The aim of this study is investigation the effect of the reduced wall thickness of a yoke shaft produced by RFW on the strength. For this purpose, yoke shafts were manufactured by using RFW and consecutive processes such as turning and millings to reduce the wall thickness. The specimens in different wall thickness were tested to determine the strength. Additionally finite element analyses (FEAs) were implemented for each variation of the specimens and compared with the test results. As a result, it was determined that yoke shafts with reduced wall thicknesses, which were produced by RFW and then consecutively machining operations to obtain a specific wall thickness, can be used in drive shaft manufacturing securely.