Seminar On

FILAMENT WINDING
By : Jayesh Parmar Roll No.- 15 Materials Science IIIrd Semester

Seminar Contents

Introduction. Materials Used in this process. Winding Patterns. Winding Methods. How does it work ? Advantages. Disadvantages. Applications. Industrial Importance of Filament Winding Process. References.

Introduction

Filament winding is a fabrication technique for creating composite material structures. The process involves winding filaments under varying amounts of tension over a mandrel. The mandrels rotates while a carriage moves horizontally, laying down fibers in the desired pattern. Filament winding machines operate on the principles of controlling machine motion through various axes of motion. The technique offers high speed and precise method for placing many composite layers.

Materials Used in this process

Glass fiber is most frequently used for filament winding, carbon and aramid fibers are also used. Most high strength critical aerospace structures are produced with epoxy resins, with either epoxy or cheaper polyester resins. The ability to use continuous reinforcement without any breaks or joins is a definite advantage, as is the high fiber volume fraction that is obtainable, about 60% to 80%.

REINFORCEMENTS USED IN FILAMENT WINDING

E-glass (Good tensile strength -3450 MPa; low tensile modulus -70 GPa ) S-glass (Improved strength- 4600 MPa ; higher tensile modulus -85 GPa) Carbon/graphite (Wide strength range -2050 to 5500 MPa ; Highest modulus 210-830 GPa) Aramid (Good strength -2750 MPa, higher tensile modulus -130 GPa)

RESIN USED IN FILAMENT WINDING

Epoxy Vinyl ester Polyester Viscosity and pot life of the catalyzed system are major processing considerations

Low viscosity is critical for complete wetting of roving and for removal of entrapped air and volatiles Suitable viscosities of the resin to be used should be in the range of 350 - 1000 cps at room temp.

ADDITIVES USED IN FILAMENT WINDING

By using various additives liquid resin systems can be made suitable to provide specific performance. Fillers constitute the greatest proportion of a formulation, second to the base resin. The most commonly used fillers are calcium carbonate, alumina silicate (clay) and alumina trihydrate

Special purpose additives include ultraviolet radiation screens for improved weatherability, antimony oxide for flame retardance, pigments for coloration. Mould release agents (Silicon gel or organic phosphate esters etc.) are important for adequate release from the mandrel to provide smooth surfaces and low processing friction.

Winding Patterns
In filament winding, one can vary winding tension, winding angle and resin content in each layer of reinforcement until desired thickness and strength of the composite are achieved. The properties of the finished composite can be varied by the type of winding pattern selected There are mainly three types of winding patterns which are most commonly used---------

Cont

Hoop Winding : It is known as girth or circumferential winding. Hoop winding is a high angle helical winding that approaches an angle of 900. Each full rotation of the mandrel advances the band delivery by one full bandwidth as shown in the following figure--

Cont

Helical Winding : In helical winding,

mandrel rotates at a constant speed while the fiber feed carriage transverses back at a speed regulated to generate the desired helical angles as shown in figure

Cont

fiber passes tangentially to the polar opening at one end of the chamber, reverses direction, and passes tangentially to the opposite side of the polar opening at the other end. In other words, fibres are wrapped from pole to pole, as the mandrel arm rotates about the longitudinal axis as shown in the figure.

Polar Winding : In polar winding, the

Winding Methods.
There are two different winding methods : (i) Wet winding , in which the fibers are passed through a resin bath and wound onto a rotating mandrel (ii) Prepreg winding in which the preimpregnated fiber tows are placed on the rotating mandrel.

Among these winding methods, wet winding is more commonly used for manufacturing fiber reinforced thermosetting matrix composite cylinders. Compared with prepreg winding, wet winding has several advantages: low material cost , short winding time and the resin formulation can be easily varied to meet specific requirements.

How does it work ?

To begin with, a large number of fiber rovings is pulled from series of creels into bath containing liquid resin, catalyst and other ingredients such as pigments and UV retardants. Fiber tension is controlled by the guides or scissor bars located between each creel and resin bath. Just before entering the resin bath, the rovings are usually gathered into a band by passing them through a textile thread board or stainless steel comb.

Cont

At the end of the resin bath, the resin-impregnated rovings are pulled through a wiping device that removes the excess resin from the rovings and controls the resin coating thickness around each roving. Once the rovings have been thoroughly impregnated and wiped, they are gathered together in a flat band and positioned on the mandrel. After winding, the filament wound mandrel is subjected to curing and post curing operations during which the mandrel is continuously rotated to maintain uniformity of resin content around the circumference. After curing, product is removed from the mandrel, either by hydraulic or mechanical extractor.

Advantages.
Highly reproducible nature of the process (layer to layer, part to part). Continuous fiber over the entire part. High fiber volume is obtainable. Ability to orient fibers in the load direction (10 minimum winding angle). Process automation (particularly with high volume) results in cost savings.

Disadvantages.

Part configuration must facilitate mandrel extraction (no trapped tooling). Mandrel could be complex and expensive. Inability to wind reverse curvature . Inability to easily change fiber path within one layer. As wound external surface may not be satisfactory for some applications.

Applications.

Rocket motors, Launch tubes. Pressure vessels, Storage tanks and Pipes Drive shafts and fishing rods

Industrial Importance of Filament Winding Process

Since this fabrication technique allows production of strong, lightweight parts, it has proved particularly useful for components of aerospace, hydrospace and military applications and structures of commercial and industrial usefulness. Both the reinforcement and the matrix can be tailor- made to satisfy almost any property demand. This aids in widening the applicability of filament winding to the production of almost any commercial items wherein the strength to weight ratio is important. Apart from the strength-to-weight advantages and low cost of manufacturing, filament wound composite parts have better corrosion and electrical resistance properties.

References

Composite Materials By K.K. Chawla (2nd edition)

www.tifac.org.in www.wikipedia.org www.alphastarcorp.com