An Experimental Study of the Lifetime of a Tripod Shaft with Torsional Fatigue Using an Accelerated Life Test Method

The components of the powertrain for high-speed trains are required to be highly reliable and have a long service life for the safe transport of passengers. The tripod shafts installed on the power bogies of high-speed trains are important components that transmit motor power to the axles and receive constant torsional loads while the trains operate. Since a critical fault in the tripod shaft would be detrimental to the train, we used an accelerated life test method in this study to validate its lifetime with torsional fatigue. For this, we analyzed a failure mode and failure mechanism based on field failure and a calibrated accelerated life test was designed through a preliminary test. In addition, the lifetime of the tripod shaft with torsional fatigue was estimated by analyzing the results of the accelerated life test, and reliability factors such as the shape and scale parameters were obtained.