Abstract—Rotorcraft, especially in military applications, can experience damage during regular operation. One particular type of damage that is of relevance to the driveline system is the introduction of holes into the shaft. Holes can arise from ballistic damage to the shaft, and characterizing the effects that holes have on stiffness, strength, and stability of the driveline system is of major interest to the designer. In this work the ballistic damage tolerance capability of aluminum and composite drive shaft segment with and without damage at different locations are carried out for various boundary conditions to determine strength, stiffness using conventional stress analysis and FEA package, Ansys.

Index Terms—Rotorcraft, Ballistic damage, Drive shaft, FEA, Ansys

Cite: Hemanth Kumar C and Swamy R P, "Analysis of Metallic and Composite Tail Rotor Drive Shaft for Ballistic Impact," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 455-462, January 2015.