Torsion fatigue failure of bus drive shafts

The mystery surrounding high failure rates in the drive shafts of a large municipal transit agency's fleet of 40 newly acquired articulated buses is investigated. The drive shafts were fabricated from a low-carbon (0.45%) steel such as AISI 5046. An examination of the drive shafts on all 40 buses is conducted, and 6 different drive shaft designs are identified among the fleet, but all of the failures, 14 in all, are limited to just one of the identified designs. Microscopic examination of the fracture surface of one of the failed drive shafts under a scanning electron microscope is conducted to determine the failure mode. Evidence of high-cycle fatigue is found, and a finite-element analysis is conducted to compare the maximum stress of the design exhibiting failures with the most common of the other designs that exhibits no failures. A fatigue life prediction is performed to determine just how much longer the expected fatigue life of the surviving design is compared to the design that suffered the early failures.