NOVEL SMART DESIGN OF REAR HALF SHAFT OF LARGE URBAN TRANSPORT VEHICLE

New design method of rear half shaft of a large urban transport vehicle with a conventional (Power Shift) and hydro-mechanical (Power Split) transmission is presented. The so-called Smart Design is based on the automatic cumulative fatigue damage determination combining the Rainflow method and Palmgren-Miner rule. Previous study, comparing the Power Shift transmission with other alternatives, clearly demonstrated that the Power Split transmission offers significant advantages in terms of pollutant emissions and fuel consumption, making it a better choice for the ecological transition. Anyhow, from a mechanical point of view, the results of this work show that the load condition of the hydro-mechanical Power Split transmission reduce significantly the fatigue life of a component initially designed for a conventional transmission.