Shaft coupling in motor vehicle steering shaft

摘要

The coupling has a socket in an end of shaft and a plunger on an end of a second shaft element. The plunger is divided by a longitudinal slot in the second shaft element into a pair of laterally flexible cantilever springs each having a pair of converging planar sides. Each side has a transverse convex lobe at a distal end of it and a concave recess inboard of the lobe. The socket has a number of planar sides which define wedge-shaped corners facing the springs when the plunger is in the socket. The springs bias the transverse convex lobes on it toward the corners of the socket to rotatably couple the shaft elements with zero dimensional tolerance between them. A flat shim in the longitudinal slot in the second shaft element limits additional flexure of the springs during torque transfer. The lobes engage the planar sides of the sockets tangent to the lobes to accommodate articulation and translation between the shafts.