A numerical and theoretical investigation into torsional buckling of composite driveshaft incorporating carbon nanotube.

Composite driveshafts have emerged as a potent substitute for traditional driveshafts because of their excellent strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios. At the same time, usage of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as a reinforcement has gained a great momentum due to their superb mechanical, electrical, and thermal characteristics. In this work, a micromechanical model combining the rule of mixtures and the Halpin-Tsai (H-T) model was used to calculate elastic constants of MWCNTs-added carbon fiber reinforced epoxy resin. This micromechanical model considers the effect of agglomeration, aspect ratio, waviness, and random orientation of MWCNTs. Elastic constants of MWCNTs/epoxy resin calculated by using micromechanical model was compared by experimental results available in the literature. Moreover, finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out to predict the critical torsional buckling load of composite driveshafts for various MWCNTs concentrations and fiber orientation angles. The FEA results were compared with the results obtained theoretically. The results showed that Young's modulus of MWCNTs/epoxy resin calculated by using the micromechanical model follows the experimental findings. When compared to pure carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy resin, E₁, E₂, E₁₂, and G₂₃ (elastic constants of composite lamina) showed improvements of 0.66%, 27.80%, 49.02%, and 37.50%, respectively, in the case of 10vol.% MWCNTs addition. The ply orientation angle has a more dominant effect on T_cr than the Doi: 10.24012/dumf.1336638 MWCNTs concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]