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In Depth Tutorials and Information
Universal Joints
Universal joints are capable of transmitting torque and rotational motion from one shaft to another when their axes are
inclined to each other by some angle, which may constantly vary under working conditions. Universal joints are
incorporated in the of vehicles transmission system to perform three basic applications :
(a) Propeller shaft end joints between longitudinally front mounted gearbox and rear final drive axle.
(b) Rear axle drive shaft end joints between the sprung final drive and the unsprung rear wheel stub axle.
(c) Front axle drive shaft end joints between the sprung front mounted final drive and the unsprung front wheel steered
stub axle.
Universal joints have movement only in the vertical plane when they are used for lon
gitudinally mounted propeller shafts
and transverse rear mounted drive shafts. When these joints have been used for front outer drive shaft they have to
move in both the vertical and horizontal plane to accommodate both vertical suspension deflection and the swivel pin
angular movement to steer the front road wheels. The compounding of angular working movement of the outer drive
shaft steering joint in two planes imposes large and varying working angles even when the torque is being transmitted to
the stub axle. Due to the severe working conditions, special universal joints known as constant velocity joints are
employed. These joints have been designed to absorb torque and speed fluctuations and to operate reliably with very
little noise and wear having long life.
26.2.1.
Gear Couplings
Basic Types of Universal Joints Cross-type Joint.
This type of joint is also called a Hooke-type coupling as it was developed from the joint invented by Robert Hooke in
the seventeenth century. This joint is commonly used today. The joints in Fig. 26.8A and B represent the basic and
developed forms respectively. They use two yokes set at 90 degrees to each other and a cross-shaped trunnion block
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joins these yokes. In more developed joints like Hardy Spicer type, contact between the two parts is made by needle
roller bearings held in a hardened steel cup retained in each arm of the yoke. For the alignment of the trunnion, the
bottom of the cup forms a contact with the end of the block.
Fig. 26.8. Types of universal joints. A. Hooke-type joint. B. Cross type joint (Hardy Spicer).
C. Cross-type with rubber bushing. D. Layrub.
E. Doughnut rubber coupling.
A special viscous oil, similar to that used in a final drive, is used for bearing lubrication, which is contained in a reservoir
formed by drilling out the centre of the trunnion arms. The oil is introduced by a lubrication hippie or is prefilled once for
entire life. An oil seal, retained on each arm of the block, prevenjts the escape of the lubricant. The cups are held in the
yoke either by circlips or staking. The replacement of worm parts in the joint becomes more difficult due to peening
over the edge of the yokes to stake the cups. Therefore replacement of the complete shaft assembly is recommended
when the joint is worn. These joints offer several advantages such as they (i) are compact, () have high mechanical
efficiency, (Hi) have ability to drive through a large occasional bump angle (maximum about 25 degrees), and (iv) due
to accurate centring of shaft, are suitable for high speed operation. One major disadvantage of the cross-type joint is its
inadequate flexibility to absorb torsional shocks and drive-line vibrations, especially when a comparatively rigid
transmission system is used.
Lubrication failure, especially when a grease nipple in the trunnion block is missed, causes the needle rollers to indent the
bearing surfaces. This type of wear causes a slight angular movement and produces a noise, commonly described as a
clonk, during the change over from drive to over-run and vice versa. If this fault is not rectified in time, the rate of wear
accelerates leading to misalignment and severe vibration.
Rubber Joints.
A smoother and less harsh drive is obtained by incorporating one or more rubber joints in the transmission driveline.
Three types of rubber joints in use include moulton, layrub and doughnut.
Moulton Joint.
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This rubber trunnion type joint (Fig. 26.8C) is based on a hooke type coupling. It uses moulded rubber bushings for the
transmission of drive between the trunnion and yokes. These synthetic rubber mouldings require no lubrication and due
to high flexibility they damp the torsional shocks produced when the drive is transmitted through an angle.
Layrub Joint.
This type joint (Fig. 26.8D), originally made by the Laycock company, was constructed of a series of rubber bushings.
The name layrub is used to describe this joint. It uses a number of moulded rubber blocks, with specially shaped cavities
at the ends. These blocks are sandwiched between two steel pressings. Each shaft is connected by means of a fork to
alternate rubber blocks. This arrangement permits the rubber blocks to deform making the drive possible for
transmission through a small angle. Also the blocks accommodate small axial and angular movements for shaft length
alteration and torsional damping. This coupling is relatively large in diameter. The layrub type joint offers several
advantages, such as (i) it does not require lubrication,
(ii) it is capable of driving through bump angles up to about 15 degrees, (Hi) it allows for axial movement, requiring no
splining of the shaft,and (iv) its resilience damps shocks and insulates vehicle from transmission noise.
Doughnut Joint.
Although large in size, the great flexibility of this joint provides soft cushioning. This absorbs the majority of torsional
shocks generated by the action of other joints or by vibration from either the engine or road wheel. The synthetic rubber
coupling shown in Fig. 26.8E is near-circular in shape and is moulded around cylindrical steel inserts, which are bolted
alternatively to the three-arm forks fixed to the shafts. The merits of this coupling are similar to that of layrub joint.
26.2.2.
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Due to the above variation of the speed of the driven shaft for various positions of the driving shaft, a single Hookes
joint becomes unsuitable for the power transmission in automobiles. But a constant velocity ratio can be obtained by the
correct use of a double joint.
The acceleration of the driven shaft, as may be obtained by differentiating the equation for velocity ratio with respect to
time.
To achieve a constant speed output from the propeller shaft two Hooke-type couplings can be mounted either back-toback or positioned in a certain way at each end of the propeller shaft. In both the configurations the relative positions of
each coupling must be such that the speed
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output speed throughout one revolution. There are no angular acceleration and deceleration as the shafts rotate. Various
CV joints in use have a construction, which is based on either the twin hooke-type coupling arrangement or the angle
bisects principle. The CV joints in use include :
Tracta Rzeppa
Weiss Tripode
o
Example 26.3. Two shafts, the axles of which intersect but are inclined at 20 to each other, are connected by a Hookes
joint. If the driving shaft has a uniform speed of1000 rpm., find from first principles, the variation in speed of the driven
shaft. The driven shaft carries a rotating mass, which weighs 147 N and has a radius of gyration of 0.25 m. Find the
accelerating torque
on the driven shaft for the position when the driven shaft has turned 45 from the position in which its fork end is in the
plane containing the two shafts.
26.2.3.
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Fig. 26.13. Double Hookes type joint shown in two positions 90 degrees out of phase.
Therefore, if the input and output shafts are inclined to each other and the first stage driven central double yoke is
speeding up, then the second stage driven output yoke slows down. On the other hand when the first stage driven
member reduces its speed the second stage driven member increases its speed. The speed lost or gained by one half of
the joint equals that gained or lost by the second half of the joint respectively. As a result no cyclic speed fluctuation
occurs between input and output shafts during rotation.
This double joint incorporates a centring device (Fig. 26.12) normally of the ball and socket spring loaded type. This
device maintains equal angularity of both the input and output shafts relative to the central double yoke member.
Although this is a difficult task to execute due to the high end loads experienced by the sliding splined joint of the drive
shaft, but the accuracy of centralizing the double yokes is not critical at the normal relatively low drive shaft speeds.
This double Hookes joint is specifically suitable for heavy duty vehicles with rigid front wheel drive live axle requiring
large lock to lock wheel swivel. This type of joint is relatively large in size compared to its torque transmitting capacity.
This forms a major limitation with this joint.
Velocity Ratio.
Double hookes joint (Fig. 26.14) connects driving shaft A and driven shaft B which are parallel but lie in different axis
through an intermediate shaft C. The yokes of shaft A and B lie in the same plane and the two yokes of shaft C also lie
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in another plane. The correct positioning of the yokes specially those on the intermediate shaft is essential to keep the
angles same for both joints and thus to obtain constant velocity ratio.
26.2.4.
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Rzeppa Joint
A Ford engineer, Alfred Hans Rzeppa (pronounced sheppa) invented one of the first practical constant velocity joints in
1926. This joint was able to transmit torque over a wide range of angles. An improved version of the joint was patented
by Rzeppa in 1935. This version uses six balls as intermediate members, which are kept at all times in a plane bisecting
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the angle between the input and output shafts (Fig. 26.16). A controlled guide ball cage is incorporated, which maintains
the balls in the bisecting plane (or the median plane) by means of a pivoting control strut, which swivels the cage at the
correct angle. This control strut is located in the centre of the enclosed end of the outer cup member. Both ball ends of
the strut are positioned in a recess and socket formed in the adjacent ends of the driving and driven members of the joint
respectively. A large spherical waist approximately midway along the strut aligns with a hole made in the centre of the
cage. Any angular inclination of the two shafts at any instant deflects the strut, which in turn proportionally swivels the
control ball cage at half the relative angular movement of both shafts. This method of cage control has a tendency to jam
and, therefore, suffers from mechanical wear.
Birfield Joint.
The Birfield joint, manufactured by Hardy Spicer Limited, is based on the Rzeppa principle (Fig. 26.17). In this
construction the joints performance has been improved further by incor
porating converging ball tracks, which do not
rely on a controlled ball cage to maintain the intermediate ball members on the median plane (Fig. 26.17B). This Joint
uses an inner (ball) input member driving an outer (cup) member. Torque is transmitted from the input to the output
member again by six intermediate ball members, which fit into curved rack grooves formed in both the cup and spherical
members. Articulation of the joint takes place due to rolling of the balls in between the inner and outer pairs of curved
grooves.
Constant velocity conditions are achieved by an intermediate member, formed by a ring of six balls placed in the median
plane (Fig. 26.17B) of the shape of the curved ball tracks generated in both the input and output joint members.
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Fig. 26.17. Birfield. Rzeppa type constant velocity joint. A. Side and end view. B. With 30 degrees shaft
angularity.
In order to obtain a controlled movement of the intermediate balls, the tracks (grooves) are formed on semicircles in
both halves, inner and outer members. The centres are on either side of the joints geometric centre by an equal distance
(Figs. 26.17A and 26.18). Once the inner member aligns inside the outer one, the six matching pairs of tracks from
grooved tunnels in which the balls are sandwiched. The inner and outer track arc offset centre from the geometric joint
centre is so chosen to give an angle of convergence (Fig. 26.18) marginally larger than 11
Fig. 26.18. Birfield Rzeppa type joint showing ball track convergence.
degrees.
This is the minimum angle required to positively guide and hold the balls on the median plane over the entire angular
inclination movement of the joint.
The ball tracks in the inner and outer members are slightly elliptical in section, having effectively two centres of curvature
(Fig. 26.19) instead of a single semicircle arc. The radius of curvature of the tracks on each side of the ball at the four
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pressure angle contact points is larger than the ball radius. The pressure angle is equal in the inner and outer tracks due
to which the balls are all under pure compression at all times so that the limiting stress is raised and consequently the
loading capacity of the balls is also raised.
The ratio of track curvature radius to the ball radius is known as the conformity ratio, which is selected to achieve a 45
degrees pressure angle point contact. This provides effective and durable service in transmitting the torque from the
driving to the driven half members of the joint (Fig. 26.19). When the balls move under load to and fro in their
respective tracks, a certain amount of roll and slide takes place. With a pressure angle of 45 degrees, the roll to sliding
ratio is roughly 4:1 which is sufficient to minimize the contact friction during any angular movement of the joint.
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Fig. 26.20. Pictorial view of Bendix Weiss constant velocity type joint (pictorial view).
This type of time constant velocity joint incorporates double prong (arm) yokes, mounted on the ends of the two driving
shafts. Four (either curved or straight) ball track grooves (Fig. 26.21) are ground inside each prong member. Each yoke
arm of one member is assembled in between the prong of the other member and four balls located in adjacent grooved
tracks transmit the drive from one yoke member to the other. The intersection of each matching pair of grooves
maintains the balls in a bisecting plane created between the two shafts, even when one shaft is inclined to the other (Fig.
26.22). Some joint models depending upon application use a fifth centralizing ball in between the two yokes. The
versions, usually with straight ball tracks, do not have the central ball due to which it can accommodate a degree of axial
plunge, especially if, the balls roll rather than slide as claimed.
Fig. 26.21. Carl Wiess type joint (side and end view).
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outer housing. On both sides of each driving fork, which also has three arms, grooves are cut to form a bearing track for
the rollers.
The force exerted by the side of the driving fork on the rollers produces the drive through the joint. This force is
transmitted to the tripode and joint housing. Changes in the drive angle causes the roller to move backwards and
forwards along the grooved track as the joint rotates through one revolution. A small clearance is given between the
roller and track to permit this movement. The tripode joint provides constant velocity motion because of the path taken
by the rollers with respect to the contact point on the track. This type of fixed joint can work occasionally up to a drive
angle of about 45 degrees.
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