Designed and manufactured a pillow bushing for the driveshaft of 2022 Baja competition car
One of the design requirements for "high energy" components, such as the driveshaft, is to contain them from a hazardous release of energy. The pillow bushing does this while also aligning the driveshaft between the front and rear gearboxes.
Design of the bushing was done in Fusion360 and design within the constraints of the whole car model. Hand calculations were done for the radial stress on the bushing. To avoid having to use an adhesive to constrain the bushing axially, and outer diameter was left on the bushings to locate and constrain them. Threaded steel inserts were used along side dowel pins to precisely located the two halves of the bushing. The housing is made of 6061 Aluminum and was machined on a CNC mill. Slots were drilled to mount the housing to the frame of the vehicle to give additional clearance for welded tabs. The bushing itself is a SAE 841 Bronze which is oil impregnated. This allows for the material to exude oil when it heats up (the driveshaft spinning) and then soak the oil back in when it cools.