Engineering Failure Analysis 99 (2019) 225–234

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Engineering Failure Analysis

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engfailanal

Failure and root cause analysis of vehicle drive shaft

T
a,b, c a c a,b
Li-Hui Zhao , Qing-Kun Xing , Jia-Yu Wang , Shen-Long Li , Song-Lin Zheng
a School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
b CMIF Key Lab for Automotive Strength and Reliability Evaluation, Shanghai 200093, China
cScience and Technology on Vehicle Transmission Laboratory, China North Vehicle Research Institute, Beijing 100072, China

ARTI CLE INF O AB STRACT

Keywords: This paper investigates the failure mode and root cause of drive shaft failure in a vehicle through
Drive shaft failure examination of the macroscopic and microscopic morphologies of the fracture surface, the che-mical
Failure mode analysis composition, metallographic analysis, and mechanical properties of the material, and theoretical finite
Root cause element calculations of the drive shaft. The results show that fatigue was the dominant mechanism of drive
Stress concentration
shaft failure due to obvious benchmarks on the fracture surfaces. Fatigue cracks initiated from the root fillet
region of the spline gear. The absence of material defects in this region indicates that the main cause of
fatigue cracks is attributable to a high stress concentration owing to the small geometrical dimensions of the
root fillet. Meanwhile, the poor quality of the root fillet due to relatively high manufacturing tolerances also
produces a higher stress concentration, and thus accelerates crack initiation and propagation. Furthermore,
all the fatigue fractures occur on the right splines owing to higher stress amplitudes at this location. Improper
stiffness matching between the left and right smooth shafts, which results in a larger torque transmitted to
the right spline, is the root cause of the drive shaft failure. These results indicate that re-evaluating drive
shaft design to ensure an equal stiffness between the two smooth shaft sections is recommended for a longer
service life.

1. Introduction

Drive shafts are mechanical components that are widely used in vehicle powertrain systems to transmit torque and rotation between di fferent
components which are not in line or cannot be connected directly. During operation, drive shafts are usually subject to torsion and shear stress
depending on the input torque and the external load. As key components carrying torque, they must be strong enough to bear the stress [ 1]: for
short term loading, the stress state is quasi-static and the drive shaft should be designed to prevent plastic deformation; for long term loading, the
stress state is dynamic therefore the shaft must be designed for millions of stress cycles.

For each application the static strength and long term durability must meet the speci fications, whilst avoiding too much addi-tional weight to
meet the demand for lightweight in vehicle industry [2]. Among the common failure causes of drive shaft during service, mechanical fatigue is
the most dominant one, which occurs under normal operation with fluctuating stresses much lower than that required to cause failure during a
single application [3,4]. For fatigue failures usually start at critical regions where structural, material or manufacturing defects exist, the useful
life of a driveshaft is determined mainly by the critical regions [5–7].
Structural geometry defect usually refers to the stress concentration in local area. Drive shafts must have elements, such as splines, gears,
grooves and oil galleries, mounted or manufactured on to transmit power or deliver lubricant [8]. The discontinuities due to

Corresponding author at: School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China. E-mail address:
pheigoe@126.com (L.-H. Zhao).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfailanal.2019.02.025
Received 13 July 2017; Received in revised form 5 January 2018; Accepted 14 February 2019
Available online 15 February 2019
1350-6307/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
L.-H. Zhao, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 99 (2019) 225–234

geometric transition introduce high local stress concentration and thus favorable to fatigue initiation [9–14]. Researches have de-monstrated that
fillets and stress release grooves are relative easy way to reduce the stress concentration and extend the fatigue life. The fillet radius itself reduces
the stresses in the critical areas which prevent cracks from forming, especially when cooperating with fine machining process, like grinding, fillet
rolling or shot penning [15,16]. The reduction of stress concentration using a stress relief groove was suggested first by Peterson [17]. Following
researches reported that stress relief features can improve the stress dis-tribution and flexibility in the connection. These attributes resulted in not
only improved fatigue performance, but also fretting fatigue strength in specific cases [18,19]. However, the detailed geometry and size of the
stress relief fillet are still subject to discussion and sometimes even controversy.

The major material of drive shaft used in vehicle industry is forged steel. In order to have an adequate strength, toughness and hardness for
an expected long term fatigue life, the material should be precisely controlled, and drive shaft should be well machined and properly heat-treated.
The crack initiation may be caused by metallographic defects and inclusions in material, scratches on the surface, inadequate machining and heat
treatment, or even dislocations and slip bands intersecting the surface under cyclic loads [4,6,10,20,21]. Manufacturing process could also
significantly affect the fatigue performance of drive shafts [10]. Fillet rolling and shot penning are traditionally used to improve the fatigue
strength and prevent premature failures of drive shaft by introducing compressive residual stresses on the surface [22,23]. Surface hardening by
heat treatment can increase wear resistance and introduce an existence of compressive residual stresses, leading to an increased fatigue life.

Owing to the catastrophic effect of failures, the failure mode and root cause analysis of drive shaft failure deserve the serious attention of
researchers and designers to ensure their durability and reliability over long term operation. However, due to the simultaneous coexistence of
both harmful and beneficial factors, the process of failure analysis and root cause identification of a failed shaft becomes very difficult. This
hinders attempts at modifying designs and production processes for improving the fatigue strength and service reliability of these crucial
mechanical components. In this paper, we present a case study that investigates the failure mechanism and root cause of a recurrent damage
observed in the drive shafts of vehicles that have currently operated for
20,000 km. This damage is recurrent in more than ten times among one hundred vehicles. The case study employs the following steps: drive
shaft review, failure description, the failure mechanism identification and root cause determination. Finally, some re-commendations are
presented based on our results for preventing future failures.

2. Method and procedure

2.1. Drive shaft and failure description

The drive shaft is composed of three involute splines at the two ends and in the middle of the drive shaft separated by two smooth shaft
sections that transmit torque from input to output splines. A schematic of the drive shaft is given in Fig. 1, which includes the main dimensions
and distinct geometrical zones. The material of the drive shaft is a type of ultra-high strength steel 40CrNi2Si2-MoVA, which is widely used for
heavy load carrying structures and transmission components due to its high strength and good fatigue performance.

A representative fracture of a drive shaft is shown in Fig. 2. All the fracture occurred at the transition of right output spline and smooth shaft.
Parts of the spline gears have broken or fallen off and obvious wear has occurred on the fracture surface, which has also become blackened. The
output and the input splines on the left side present nothing abnormal except for some visible contact and compression marks. Preliminary
inspections show the drive shafts were running under proper use of and maintenance and the surface of splines and shafts were free of scratches
or injured marks.

2.2. Investigation method

To analyze the root cause of the fracture of the drive shaft, the investigation was carried out in four parts: (1) fracture surface examination;
(2) material inspection; (3) mechanical properties test; (4) local stress analysis. The details of each part are as follows:

1) Fracture surface examination

Fracture surface examination was conducted through macroscopic and microscopic morphologies of the two broken shafts (shown

Fig. 1. Schematic of drive shaft and distinct geometrical zones.

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Fig. 2. Drive shaft fracture characteristic.

in Fig. 2). Macroscopic morphology was performed to determine the failure mode and fracture source of the drive shaft. Then microscopic
morphology in the vicinity of crack source was obtained using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to determine the mechanism of the
fracture. To observe internal crack the shaft was cut at a distance 50 mm to the fracture surface on the spline, as shown in Fig. 3(a).

2) Material inspection

Material inspection was performed to determine whether the chemical compositions and metallographic structures meet the requirement of
the drive shaft material. Chemical compositions were analyzed using an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), and samples are taken on the
fracture surface. Metallographic structures were analyzed by metallographic microscope, and three samples are taken along the radial direction
from outside to the core on the cutting surface of the two fractured shafts. The sampling positions were shown in Fig. 3(b).

3) Mechanical properties

Mechanical properties were tested through cylindrical specimens cut from the smooth section of the fracture drive shafts. Since residual
stress and hardness have strong effect on the fatigue of drive shaft, they were also measured at the sites near fracture surface on the two fractured
and one c shafts, as shown in Fig. 3(a). The residual stress was measured by X-Ray technique, while hardness was tested Rockwell hardometer.

4) Local stress analysis

Local stress analysis was performed through finite element analysis (FEA) using a commercial simulation program HyperWorks

Fig. 3. Metallographic structure at different locations on drive shaft.

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Fig. 4. Cutting position and testing points for hardness and residual stresses.

(version 12.0). The model was set up under static condition with maximum torque to analyze the overall stress distribution and local stress states
of the drive shaft. The elements of the model were generated according to the drive shaft geometry, where coarse meshing was adopted on the
smooth shaft section while fine meshing was employed at the spline root, as shown in Fig. 4(a). The boundary conditions are shown in Fig. 4(b),
where torque is applied on the input spline and the rotation of the shaft is constrained through the matched inner spline gear by the contact
surfaces.

3. Results

3.1. Fracture surface morphology

The fracture morphology presented characteristic beach mark on the fracture surface, as shown in Fig. 5. The drive shaft failure represents
fatigue fracture under cyclic loading, and the crack initiation zone shows linear source characteristics. Fig. 6(a) shows a diagram of the cracks on
the spline cutting surface. It can be seen that a radial longitudinal crack was initiated from the root of the spline, and each spline is separated due
to the radial crack. Compared with the cracks on the transition radius gear root of an unbroken drive shaft, it is obvious that the cracks of the
drive shaft began at the root of the spline and expanded toward the shaft axis, as shown in Fig. 6(b), and then propagate along radial and axial
directions under cyclic loading.
Fig. 7 shows the micro morphology of the crack initiation zone. It can be seen that the crack source is relatively clean without obvious
inclusions. Under periodic loading, the fracture surfaces around the crack in the initiation zone made contact, and the resulting rubbing action
completely destroyed the original fracture morphology. From the side view of the primary crack, some sections of the internal face of the crack
exhibit characteristics of intergranular fracture, as shown in Fig. 8. The secondary cracks also present fatigue fracture morphology, and exhibited
various extents of cleavage fracture, fracture toughening, and brittle fracture at different locations, as shown in Fig. 9.

3.2. Chemical composition and metallographic structures

The chemical composition of the material near the fracture surface was listed in Table 1. From the results, it is obviously that the chemical
composition was in accordance with the requirements of the drive shaft material 40CrNi2Si2MoVA. Fig. 10 displays the microstructures at
different positions on the cutting surface, showing a fine tempered martensite in the material and a uniformity of metallographic structure.

3.3. Mechanical properties

Table 2 shows the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), elongation (δ) and reduction of area (ψ) of the drive shaft

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Fig. 5. Finite element analysis of drive shaft.

Fig. 6. Fracture morphology features.

material. It can be seen that the mechanical properties of both the fractured and cracked drive shaft meet the requirement.
The hardness of the surfaces and residual stresses on both sides of the fatigue fracture are listed in Table 3, where a negative value represents
a residual compressive stress and a positive value represents a residual tensile stress. The ubiquitous observance of ne-gative values suggests that
a residual compressive stress surrounds the fracture. The residual compressive stress is weaker near the spline while it is stronger near the
smooth shaft, which is beneficial for improving the fatigue properties. The hardness is stable around the fracture, and is between 54.6 and 55.3
HRC. We note that this value meets the required upper limit of 48–55.5 HRC. The

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Fig. 7. Macro-Cracks at the spline root.

Fig. 8. Micro morphology features at initiation zone.

Fig. 9. Intergranular fracture characteristics on primary crack.

Table 1
Chemical composition of drive shaft material (wt%).

Element C Mn Si Cr Ni Mo V P S
Specification 0.40–0.45 0.60–0.90 1.45–1.80 0.70–0.95 1.65–2.00 0.30–0.50 0.05–0.10 ≤0.01 ≤0.01
Actual 0.42 0.80 1.62 0.88 1.87 0.46 0.087 < 0.005 0.0008

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Fig. 10. Morphology of secondary crack.

Table 2
Mechanical properties of the drive shaft material.a

Index
a UTS YS δ ψ

Fractured shaft 1 1930 1640 11.0 49

Fractured shaft 2 1821 1573 11.7 43.9
Cracked shaft 1845 1537 10.9 48.4
Standard requirements ≥1800 ≥1500 ≥8 ≥30

a Ultimate tensile strength (UTS); yield strength (YS); elongation (δ); reduction of area (ψ).

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Table 3
Testing results of the surface harness and residual stresses.

Drive shaft Residual stress (MPa) Hardness (HRC)

Left spline A Left spline B Right spline A Right spline B Left side Right side

Fractured shaft 1 −342 −194 −362 −215 54.8 55.2

Fractured shaft 2 −368 −207 −343 −222 54.8 54.6
Cracked shaft −347 −211 −355 −196 55 55

mechanical performance tests, hardness, and residual stresses all indicate that the drive shaft material meets all design requirements without
obvious deviations.

3.4. Local stress analysis

The stress distribution contours of the drive shaft and critical zones based on the FEA are shown in Fig. 11. Here, the torque applied on the
driveshaft in the simulation had a maximum value of 26,000 N⋅m based on measured data obtained during operation. The results indicate that
critical zones are found at the gear root of the right spline gear with a maximum stress magnitude of 954.3 MPa, which is in accordance with the
experimentally observed crack initiation zone. The maximum local stress on the left spline also occurs at the root of the spline gear with a
magnitude value of 539.4 MPa, and the stresses on the left and right smooth shafts are 285.9 MPa and 502.6 MPa, respectively.

4. Discussion

The beach mark on the fracture surface (Fig. 5) revealed that the type of drive shaft failure belongs to fatigue fracture. The cracks are
initiated from the transition arc section of the spline root, and propagate toward multiple source zones while expanding along the axial and radial
directions, which finally results in the observed petal-like star shape fracture. The FEA results showed that the maximum stress of the drive shaft
during service is 954.3 MPa at the root of the spline on the right. We note that this is much less than the limit values for the YS (1500 MPa) and
UTC (1800 MPa) for the material. Clearly, the fatigue process represents high cycle fatigue under cyclic stress.

From the material properties analyses, no significant abnormalities in the chemical composition, metallographic structure, strength,
toughness, hardness, and residual stresses of the drive shaft material were observed, and all these properties met the design requirements.
However, the significant stress concentration at the root of the spline readily induces fatigue failure despite the relatively high notch sensitivity
and high strength of the drive shaft material. As a result, the fatigue failure process of the drive shaft can be described as follows. A crack
initiates firstly at the root of the spline due to the high stress concentration and expands along the axial and radial directions under cyclic loading.
With increasing crack depth, the area of the drive shaft over which the torque is distributed becomes increasingly reduced, and the actual load
begins to exceed the maximum load the shaft can bear, at which point fracture occurs instantaneously in the Fe base along the shaft cross-section.
In addition, due to manufacturing tolerances, the dis-tribution range of the fillet radius (Fig. 6) of the spline root is relatively wide (0.95–1.60
mm), which can scarcely meet the required radius of 1.5 mm for the gear root arc transition,. Small radius would make the fillet not tangential to
the spline on either side, which exacerbated the stress concentration and further accelerated the initiation and propagation of cracking.

Most of all, it should also be noted that the failure of all drive shafts occurred on the right spline, and cracking initiated at the root of the
spline transition arc. FEA results showed that the maximum stress at the root of the right spline (954.3 MPa) is far greater than

Fig. 11. Stress distribution contours of the drive shaft based on FE analysis.

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Fig. 12. Torque distribution vs stiffness ratio between left and right shaft.

that of the left spline (539.4 MPa). Correspondingly, the stress of the right smooth shaft (502.6 MPa) is also greater than that of the left smooth
shaft (285.9 MPa). This indicates that the torque at each side of the drive shaft during actual service was not consistent. For the diameter of the
smooth shaft remains the same while the length diverges, resulting in a non-uniform stiffness on both sides. Shorter length corresponds to higher
stiffness at the right side, while a longer shaft corresponds to a lower stiffness at the left side. When applying a torque on the middle input gear,
the relative rotation angles of left and right splines to input gear are the same. The right spline would bear a larger torque. Fig. 12 shows the
variation in the torque distribution between left and right splines of the shaft with respect to the sti ffness under an equivalent torque. It can be
seen that when the stiffness values on both sides are identical, the allocated moments are equivalent. Therefore, the fatigue life of the drive shaft
could be significantly increased by properly matching the stiffness between left and right splines.

5. Conclusion

Two drive shafts were employed to investigate the failure and root cause of a recurrent fracture of the drive shaft, which occurred for more
than ten times among a hundred vehicles. The beach mark characteristic on the fracture surfaces revealed that the drive shafts exhibited fatigue
failures during service. No inclusions or metallographic defects have been found in the vicinity of crack source. Both the chemical compositions
and mechanical properties, i.e. tensile strength, yield strength, elongation and reduction of area, meet the standard requirement of the material.
And the small scatter of residual stress and hardness illustrated the stability in manufacturing and heat treatment process. The above observations
have excluded the possibility that material defects or inadequate manufacturing relevant to the failure of the drive shaft. FEA performed under
maximum torque in service showed an obvious stress concentration at the root fillet of the spline gears, and the right splines experienced a much
higher stress than the left splines, which is in accordance with the position of crack source. The higher torque due to improper stiffness matching
combined with the stress concentration from small fillet radius resulting in a high stress at the right spline root fillet can be concluded as the root
cause of the drive shaft failure. A re-evaluation of drive shaft design that considers the torque distribution between the left and right splines
therefore appears to be a good solution for this unexpected premature failure.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51375313 and 51705322) and SAIC Automobile
Technology Fundation (No. 1624).

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