Fatigue analysis of an elevator drive shaft: using the ASME and DE-GOODMAN criteria.

This study considers the drive shaft of a bucket elevator, which is an integral component of a plant mechanism used to transport cement from bottom to top. Failures can occur for various reasons, possibly creating safety problems. This shaft broke during regular operation and without reaching the limit of its service life. Investigations revealed that the leading cause of failure was fatigue caused by a stress concentration phenomenon, where the source is the keyway, and cyclic loading due to power transmission elements such as the left-hand coupling and the middle wheel supporting buckets full of material. This study aimed to determine the leading cause of the failure by checking the shaft diameter according to two criteria, DE-Goodman and ASME, and comparing it with the manufacturer's diameter (220 mm). The results showed that the diameter calculated according to the ASME standard is 140 mm, while that obtained using the DE-Goodman method is 214 mm.