Flexible shaft coupling, particularly for motor vehicle drive shafts

Abstract

A flexible shaft coupling comprising drive side connecting elements and driven side connecting elements arranged alternately and equidistantly in an annular orientation, and coupling pieces of annular form linking mutually adjacent pairs of drive side connecting elements and driven side connecting elements, each of both connecting elements being formed of an inner sleeve, an outer sleeve and an elastic intermediate member bonding them, the coupling pieces being formed of a belt strip wrapping around the outer sleeve and an elastomeric body surrounding and covering the wrapped belt strip. The elastic intermediate member is formed as a rubber bushing press-fitted between the inner and outer sleeves and extends only in an axially middle portion of both sleeves, and adjacent to the rubber bushing, intermediate sleeves are fitted to the inner sleeve or outer sleeve. The elastic intermediate member has a compressive strain of 25-40%. Upon normal loading, the elastic intermediate member causes elastic deformation to conduct torque transmission and consequently, low torsional rigidity and low inclination rigidity are retained and run-out of drive shaft and driven shaft is minimized. Upon high loading, torque transmission is performed by the intermediate sleeve, inner sleeve and outer sleeve unitedly being in contact with one another with no vibrations and no noises.