Author(s)

Kin S. Yeung

Abstract

The performance of an output shaft can be improved by adding a taper in the axial direction to its external spline. The optimal taper depends on the design torque and the stress criterion. The largest maximum principal stress in the shaft can be reduced by as much as 15% if the spline is tapered 0.54°. This type of reduction in stress would typically result in greater than a factor of two improvement in fatigue life. Conversely, it can be viewed as increasing the maximum spline fatigue load by 15%. Introduction A spline is a geometric feature used to join one shaft to another. It transmits torsion, but permits axial sliding. The current practice for designing splines to carry a torque is to use involute splines with no helix angle or taper on the external tooth. The size of the spline, the number of teeth and

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