Filament winding machine

Halpin (1) and Tsai (2) have presented treatises that address the effects of fiber content, orientation and properties on the composite s mechanical performance. A numerically controlled filament winding machine is capable of placing fiber in precise, three dimensional, engineered patterns. Future research addressing the molecular role of the resin s infrastructure on mechanical performance, will couple filament wound composite... 

Centrifugal balancing machines, fixed or portable, horizontal or vertical. Filament winding machines... 

Filament winding machines in which the motions for positioning, wrapping, and winding fibres are coordinated and programmed in three or more axes, specially designed to fabricate composite structures or laminates from fibrous and filamentary materials and capable of winding cylindrical rotors. 

Figure 5.64 Schematics of "racetrack filament winding machines. Top view shows a schematic of a machine built to fabricate 150,000 gal rocket motor tanks other view is machine in action...

Circuit One complete traverse of the fiber feed mechanism of a filament winding machine. 

Continuous reinforcement is placed and oriented on the mandrel surface by the position of the pay-out eye. In the most simple filament winding machine the pay-out eye is fixed to the carriage and therefore can only traverse the length of the mandrel. Hence the angle at which it is placed is dependent on the rotational speed of the mandrel and the traverse rate of the carriage. The angle of the reinforcement fibre can be any helical angle from almost axial to hoop. 

Figure 21.61 Pultrex 5-axis filament winding machine. Source Reprinted with permission from Shaw-Stewart D, Filament winding-materials and engineering, Materials and Design 6, No. 3,1985. Copyright 1985, Elsevier.

Figure 21.62 Racetrack model filament winding machine. Source Reprinted with permission from Goldsworthy WB, Conference Filament Winding, The Plastics Institute, London, Oct 17-18, 1967. Copyright 1967, Maney Publishing (who administers the copyright on behalf of lOM Communications Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institute of Materials, Minerals Mining).

Pultrex Ltd., Colchester, Essex, UK—produce pultrusion and filament winding machines. Acquired by Shell in 1994, then acquired by Pacific Composites, Australia. In 2003, equipment manufacturing side was purchased by Colin Leek (Pultrex MD) and Douglas Curtis Machine Tools, who manufactured the machines on behalf of Pultrex. The pultrusion manufacturing remained with Pacific Composites. 

Directionally reinforced molding compound (XMC) contains continuous reinforcements (up to 70 wt%) arranged in an X pattern with some chopped fibers and the final product has strong directional properties in the continuous fiber direction. XMC can be made on almost any filament winding machine as shown in Fig. 3.11. 

A lot of filament winding machine suppliers are active on the market. In... 

Equipment. A typical early filament-winding machine with rudimentary computer controls is the lathe-type winder illustrated in Figure 20, utilizing rotating mandrel and traversing carriage. 

Fig. 20. Typical lathe-type filament-winding machine.

Military Equipment. Filament-winding machines are used to wind wet filament on 155-mm artillery projectiles, five shells at a time on a 3-min cycle. The steel casings are automatically loaded horizontally onto a continuous chain- and spud-conveyor system. The casings are oriented vertically under a row of winding heads, which move into position for winding and then withdraw. At the next station the filament is severed, while the conveyor brings a new bank of shells into position. The wound shells are cured in an r-f oven and removed at the end of the machine. 

Figure 1.8. Axes definition at filament winding machine [28]...

Similar to continuous wet winding, an approach has been developed in the field of thermoplastic winding. By means of a deposition ring, placing fibers in an axial direction, and rotating spools, round thermoplastic tubes or vessels can be produced continuously. Pressure vessels produced with such a filament winding machine have been successfully introduced to the industrial market [47]. 

N N (2008) Filament winding machine typl, EHA FW-Prepreg Prospect 2008, DOI, Germany. Haupert F and Friedrich K (1995) Processing-related consolidation of high speed filament wound continuous fiber/thermoplastic composite rings, Compos Man /6 201-204,... 

Figure 1.10 is adapted from EHA FW-Prepreg Prospect, DOI, 2008, Author Anonymous, Title Filament winding machine typ2. Copyright (2011), with permission from Bolenz Schafer GmbH. 

Individual leaves are fabricated using a filament-winding machine. A fiber volume fraction of 0.6 is used. All individual leaves are assembled together using a center bolt and four side... 

Figure 13 depicts schematically the filament winding system developed to produce GF/PP pipes and plates from towpregs and PCTs. This system was mounted on a laboratory CNC 6-axes conventional PULTREX filament winding machine. The equipment consists of a preheating furnace, a hot-air heater, and a pneumatically controlled consolidation roll. 

Continuous fibers can be wound on a large diameter cylinder in an X-pattem by using a standard filament winding machine. It is then cut, removed from the cylinder, flattened out and impregnated with resin. The sheets thus formed are compression molded and the products have quite high mechanical strengths. Chopped strands can be also incorporated into an X-pattem to improve the strength further. 

Poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) and poly(glycolic acid) (PGA) continuous fibers were wound helically by a filament winding machine on polyethylene hoses with a desired outer diameter. 

---