Numerical investigation of interference fit assemblies and the influence of varying the laminate thickness

For hybrid joints between CFRP drive shafts and metallic hubs the interference fit assembly (IFA) is a fibre suitable joining technique. To improve the analysis with an easy applicable analytical approach and give design recommendations both for thick-walled IFAs the influence of several mechanical and tribological phenomena as well as several design parameters need to be investigated. In a former study the assembly process has been investigated experimentally and the test specimens have been analysed with an analytical approach. In this study these test specimens are analysed with a rotationally symmetric numerical linear elastic model. The results are compared to the experimental and analytical values. The influence of the laminate's thickness on the contact pressure is numerically investigated within a parameter study. The numerical values deviate less from the experimental results than the analytical values. This deviation shows no dependency from the thickness of the parts. Increasing the outer 90°-layers' thickness influences the contact pressure less the thicker the parts are. A critical 90°-layers' thickness is determined, for which the contact pressure is almost constant for a varying thickness of the inner layers. The critical thickness depends on the angle of the balanced laminate and can be scaled with the corresponding scaling factor for scaled parts.