Research Progress and Development Trend of Composite Winding Process and Equipment (Part 1)

 

Film winding equipment has gone through the development process of mechanical, CNC, microcomputer control, and robot winding.

 

At present, the research on winding equipment is mainly focused on multi-degree-of-freedom, multi-station, continuous winding, complex special-shaped parts winding, robot winding, high-speed and high-precision winding, multi-process composite, and clean manufacturing.

 

Auxiliary equipment in the winding process, such as fast dipping device, multi-wire nozzle and modular wire guide head, high-precision tension controller, internal heating and curing mold, etc., are also constantly improved.

 

 

 

Research Progress of Winding Molding Process

 

Winding Process

Study on the influence of factors such as fiber winding tension system, fiber volume content, fiber stacking, fiber overhead and cross undulation, winding line type, pattern distribution, winding speed, etc. on the stress, strain, stiffness and other properties of the molded product.

 

Winding Line Type

 

Fiber Aerial

Fiber Accumulation

 

Tangent Point Distribution

 

Winding of Special-Shaped Parts

At present, the winding theory has been quite perfect, and winding software with winding trajectory planning for various typical special-shaped parts has been developed. At present, it mainly focuses on the winding of T-shaped pipes, bent pipes and special-shaped rotating body structures that are widely used.

 

Ring Pressure Vessel

 

T-Tube Winding

 

Special-Shaped Parts Winding

 

Pipe Bending

 

Concave Column Shell Winding

 

Concave Cylindrical Shell Winding

 

Process Composite – Pultrusion/Winding/Weaving

The winding and pultrusion process are composited, referred to as pultrusion. Its working principle is to pull first to form a unidirectional inner layer; circumferential winding to increase radial strength; unidirectional pultrusion to form a smoother outer wall.

 

The Pultrusion Process has the Following Advantages:

 

The pultrusion process is continuous production;

 

The inner and outer surfaces are smooth surfaces, without turning or grinding, reducing material consumption, labor intensity, and environmental pollution;

 

The pultrusion process ensures the orderliness of fiber arrangement, maximizes the performance of the reinforced fiber, and ensures the stability of the product performance;

 

The FRP membrane shell produced by the pultrusion process has a good wall thickness uniformity, and the average deviation is not more than 0.1mm, so that the dimensional accuracy of the porous FRP membrane shell can be guaranteed.

 

Winding Membrane Shell

 

CAD/CAM

Foreign countries have developed to a very high level in the research of filament winding CAD/CAM software. CAD/CAM software not only has perfect rotational body filament winding line and trajectory design functions, but also has special-shaped parts filament winding trajectory design functions.

 

 

For typical special-shaped parts such as tees and elbows, perfect CAD/CAM software has been developed for core mold design, line design, trajectory planning and post-processing, and can generate corresponding control codes according to specific CNC systems.

Such as CADWIND of MATERIAL Company in Belgium, CADFIL of Crescent Consultants Ltd in the UK and SimWind software of McClean Anderson in the United States.

 

CADFIL Winding Software Interface

 

 

 

Tape Winding – Pipe Fittings and Pressure Vessels

Thermoplastic fiber tape winding has been a hot topic in recent years. Tape winding has better designability, better fiber-resin bonding, and better molding efficiency. Combined with laser or infrared assisted online curing process, it can achieve better quality and more efficient industrial mass production. The product has the characteristics of environmental protection, fatigue resistance, and impact resistance. Pipe fittings, pressure vessels, special-shaped parts, etc. manufactured using this process have broken through many limitations of fiber yarn bundle winding and thermosetting resin systems, and have broad application prospects.

 

With Winding Pipe Fittings

 

 

 

Belt Winding Pressure Vessel

 

Fiber Winding sSpecial-Shaped Structural Connectors

 

In terms of fiber winding structural parts and connectors, advanced winding trajectory design methods, improved processes and materials are used to greatly reduce weight and increase structural strength. Typical applications include fiber winding structural connectors, transmission parts, integral frame structural parts, etc.

 

The core technology is coreless winding and fixed track winding to achieve weight reduction and special-shaped structural winding.

 

 

Filament Winding Connection and Transmission Parts

 

 

Filament-Wound Integral Frame (for Construction)

 

Efficient Winding of Pressure Vessels

 

RWTH Aachen University in Germany has developed a multi-filament-wound pressure vessel (Multi-Filament-Wound Pressure Vessel), which can withstand a maximum pressure of 700 bar. This vessel can wind up to 180 strands of roving at the same time, winding one fiber layer at a time. Currently, this product is used in automotive fuel cylinders.

 

The molding efficiency is 50 times that of traditional wet winding;

 

The filament bundle has no curling, which can greatly improve the mechanical properties of the product;

 

It has efficiency advantages for the molding of large products.