1350 Carbon Fiber Driveshafts

Don't Be Fooled...Not All Carbon Fiber Driveshafts are the Same!

 

 

We May Not Produce the Cheapest Shaft, but It Is the Best!

We specialize in carbon fiber driveshafts!  We are not a driveshaft fabricator that buys a generic carbon tube and glues yoke ends into it.  We are an engineering driven composite design and manufacturing company.  We have complete engineering, manufacturing, and testing capabilities to take any shaft design program from concept through verification testing and final production implementation.  We manufacture our carbon fiber shafts in-house from the raw carbon fiber to the finished assembly.  Our joint design is a unique/proprietary combination of geometry, material selection and manufacturing process methods.  This has resulted in a structure that has had zero field failures over a wide variety of shaft types and over multiple years of production.  We use the highest strength, most expensive carbon fiber strands available in all of our engineered driveshaft designs.  The fiber we use is 33% stronger than typical, commonly-used carbon fiber.  We also use the highest strength, most expensive aluminum alloy in our yoke ends.  We do not machine our yoke ends from 6061-T6, which is a lower strength alloy.  All of our engineered driveshafts are designed and fabricated from the ground up.  The final result is the lightest, strongest and highest RPM capability shafts.  In many cases, our final shaft weights are multiple pounds lighter than the shafts of our competition.  In other words, just because it is a carbon fiber shaft doesn't mean it is better or lighter than a metal driveshaft.

Why BAC Carbon Fiber vs. Metal Shafts?

 

1. Lower NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harmonics) Levels

Due to the epoxy matrix of the composite material, the composite shaft has an inherent vibration dampening characteristic.

 

2. Higher RPM Capability

For a fixed diameter and length, a custom, engineered BAC carbon shaft will have a higher critical speed than steel, aluminum and titanium shafts.  This is due to the low mass density of the carbon fiber/epoxy and the relatively high axial stiffness of the engineered laminate.  This results in a shaft that can operate several thousand RPMs higher than a metal shaft of the same diameter and length.

 

3. Lighter Weight

A custom engineered BAC shaft is the lightest weight shaft available.  In some cases, depending on the size of the metal shaft being replaced, a BAC carbon shaft can eliminate several pounds of rotating weight.  

 

4. Torsional Damper

For the same fixed diameter and fixed length, it is possible to engineer a carbon shaft to have a relatively low modulus of rigidity resulting in a shaft with a high torsional flexibility compared to the same size metal shaft. This unique characteristic will "smooth out" and absorb torque spikes of the engine extending the transmission life.

 

5. Greater Life Cycle

Since a BAC composite shaft does not have any welds, there is no metal fatigue.  The life cycle of a properly designed composite shaft will far exceed all types of metal shafts since carbon fiber composite has extraordinarily high fatigue strength. The typical fatigue failure location of metal shafts is in the weld area (heat affected zone).

 

6. Greater Torsional Strength

All BAC engineered composite shaft designs are lab tested to failure.  One such test is the Ultimate Torsional Test which is conducted to verify the analysis.  An engineered BAC composite shaft will exceed the torsional strength of all metal shaft of the same diameter.  The typical failure location of all metal shafts is again in the weld area (heat affected zone).  The welding process itself severely weakens the metal material properties of the adjacent metal tube.  Any heat treatment of the metal is quickly undone due to the welding temperatures in the heat affected zone.

 

F.A.Q. (Frequently Asked Questions)

1. How much does your shaft weigh?

2. What is the ultimate torsional strength of your shaft?

3. What is the RPM capability of your shaft?

 

We have the answers for every one of these questions on all of our designs.  If the competition (either metal or composite) doesn't have these answers, then they either don't know (shafts not tested or not engineered) or their shaft just isn't any good (not a high performance shaft).

Not only do we have these answers for our potential customers, we guarantee that we exceed all other shafts in each criteria.  

 

 

Let us know what your application requirements are and we would be happy to provide a quotation for your project. We will need the following information...

 

  • Maximum Operational RPM

  • Maximum Operational Torque

  • Overall Length

  • Maximum Outside Diameter

  • Quantity Requirements