Lightweight, Low-Cost, Damage-Tolerant, Highly Survivable Composite Drive Shaft for Helicopter Application

The ability to construct a composite, damage-resistant, highly survivable drive shaft for a rotary-wing application using an IM7 graphite/polyetheretherketone (PEEK) composite and in-situ tape-placement fabrication technology has been demonstrated. Through an evolutionary process, highly survivable, damage-tolerant shafts were developed, design tools and data were validated, and test shafts developed to evaluate the design viability in a dynamic application. The drive shafts demonstrated the feasibility of the technology, illustrated the ability to customize the design to meet unique shaft properties (e.g., frequency), and validated the maturity of the technology for rotary-wing applications.