JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #130 - September/October 2019 - 34

MANUFACTURlNG fibre placement
conclusion that a five or six axes machine
is required for the task, a machine that has
two rotational degrees of freedom (roll and
yaw) on the payout head in addition to the
mandrel rotation and the normal axial and
radial linear axes. The aspiration was to make
this winding with no more than a 4-axis
machine as this gives a better machine costs
and ultimately a simpler machine gives better
long-term reliability and maintenance costs
over the long terms within a 24/7 production
environment. Working with the established
winding machine builder CNC Technics Ltd
(Hyderabad India) it was concluded that by
using a novel axis configuration it is possible
to make these parts using only 4 axes of
control whilst keeping precise control over
the woven tape. The solution involved the
use of a rotating arm on which the tape reel
resin bath any eye/head roll axis is mounted.
This also has the benefit of keep the tape path
very simple with no bends or twists between
guide rolls, an important consideration as this
reduces friction and the possibility of fibre
damage. Because of the modular software
design of the Cadfil system is was a relatively
simple matter to create a robust control
strategy for this mechanical payout and then
configure this within out post-processor.
Integration of winding
process into the design system
One of the areas where there has been

much recent and ongoing development is
integration of the filament winding process
into the overall design process. For example,
on the domes of the pressure vessel the angle
and thickness of an individual laminate is
continuously varying. A high-performance
pressure vessel can be made of many layers
and trying to model the fibre architecture by
manual processes is very time consuming. For
this reason, an ability interface the winding
program generation with the analysis system
is very important for an efficient design
process. There are currently three routes to
interface axisymmetric winding data from
Cadfil with FEA modellers. The first is via
the Nastran bulk data format where a shell
model is created complete with full laminate
stack data for each element. This format is
something of an industry standard and can be
read directly into many analysis systems such
as MSc Patran/Nastran. A second options
is to output a laminate table that consists of
grid points in the surface of the mandrel and
an angle thickness/material/records data for
each layer at each grid point. Systems such as
ANSYS composite modeller can import such
a table and then map it via interpolation to
and existing mesh in that system. ABAQUS
has similar capabilities. This is a better methodology because the mesh can be defined
and refined in a software system specifically
designed for that purpose rather than using
a mesh defined in a system specifically made

Carbonprocessing? Of course!
Topocrom carbonprocessing surfaces increase process reliability.
Our coating with closed reactor technology generates exactly
defined surface roughnesses and topographies:

for designing winding programs. It is also possible (for example in Patran) to make macros
that export co-ordinates with an element ID
to a file, import that into Cadfil where is can
be automatically associated with a design and
thus a table of laminate data associated with
each element ID in the original FEA model
can be created. This is quite a powerful method for components that have significant parts
that are not wound such as flanges and side
ports on a storage / pressure tank because
the laminate data becomes associated with
only the appropriate parts of the analysis
model without the user having to make lots of
manual interventions. Current developments
will soon include axisymmetric type output
where the material property varies through
the thickness element via element rather than
being based on laminate shells.
The future...
The last 30 years have seen a great deal of
change and particularly so in the area of
development of our Cadfil filament Winding
software, however, this work is never complete are always areas where we can improve
integration with designs systems and advances and with advanced in machine technology.
We are looking forward to the next 30 years.
More information:
www.cadfil.com

REACH
Authorization

12 years

Hemispherical * Stochastic * Hard and wear resistant
Key-Advantages of Topocrom carbonprocessing surfaces:
*
*
*
*

Considerable reduction of splicing and filament breaks
Reduced dust formation, optimized stretching
No sticking of the fibers, no undesired windings
Excellent sliding ability for carbon-, aramid-, glass
and basalt fibers
* Good ability for taking up fluids and wetting the functional area

jec composites magazine / N°130 September - October 2019

Topocrom GmbH * Hardtring 29 * D-78333 Stockach
Telefon: +49 (0) 7771 93 630
info@topocrom.com * www.topocrom.com

http://www.cadfil.com http://www.topocrom.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #130 - September/October 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #130 - September/October 2019