CADFIL-Thermoplastic Tape
Elbow-Winding
Elbow-Winding
| CADFIL is a registered trade mark. For further information on CADFIL filament winding software systems contact: Crescent Consultants Ltd 2 Springfield Kegworth Derby, England DE74 2DP Tel: +44(0)7958 647196 Fax: +44(0)871 263 7797 Email: sales@cadfil.com |
In this example, the customer wished to over-wind an aramid (Kevlar) thermoplastic tape onto a steel pipe bend.
To productionise this for volume manufacture, a special winding machine was the best solution. It was necessary
to first undertake product proving on an existing winding machine, without having to make costly modifications.
The machine is a 6 axis BSD filament winding machine with a Siemens CNC controller; the winding took place at
the BSD factory in Germany.
As you will see in the video, the tape was heated to melt the surface using a gas jet, mounted close to the
mandrel to prevent tape chilling. There were two interesting software challenges for CADFIL:
1) Maintaining the angles in 3D that the tape is presented to the gas burner and achieving a constant speed that
the tape is passing through the flame. Both are required to get the correct tack level without 'over cooking' the
tape. As the mandrel is eccentric to a variable degree, the speed the tape is leaving the spool is not the speed it
is passing through the flame.
2) It is possible to wind an elbow using a 4 axis machine. Unfortunately in this case, the winding machine had
insufficient cross-feed axis stroke for the diameter and eccentricity of the mandrel. The solution was to
disconnect and remove the eye-roll axis (not required for this part) in order to create more clearance, and then to
use both the cross-feed and vertical axes simultaneously as a ‘composite’ cross-feed axis. The combined axis
strokes give a larger, effective, composite axis stroke on an inclined plane. Because of this requirement, there is
some comprise on 1) above and in a couple of places such as at middle of the part, near top dead centre, the
flame touches briefly on the mandrel surface as the machine is at the limits of travel on two axes.
Using Cadfil software, it was possible to meet these challenges and to achieve accurate tape placement The final
software solution in Cadfil was very simple to use, once the additional constraints of the machine had been
identified and configured into the Cadfil NC post-processor.
To productionise this for volume manufacture, a special winding machine was the best solution. It was necessary
to first undertake product proving on an existing winding machine, without having to make costly modifications.
The machine is a 6 axis BSD filament winding machine with a Siemens CNC controller; the winding took place at
the BSD factory in Germany.
As you will see in the video, the tape was heated to melt the surface using a gas jet, mounted close to the
mandrel to prevent tape chilling. There were two interesting software challenges for CADFIL:
1) Maintaining the angles in 3D that the tape is presented to the gas burner and achieving a constant speed that
the tape is passing through the flame. Both are required to get the correct tack level without 'over cooking' the
tape. As the mandrel is eccentric to a variable degree, the speed the tape is leaving the spool is not the speed it
is passing through the flame.
2) It is possible to wind an elbow using a 4 axis machine. Unfortunately in this case, the winding machine had
insufficient cross-feed axis stroke for the diameter and eccentricity of the mandrel. The solution was to
disconnect and remove the eye-roll axis (not required for this part) in order to create more clearance, and then to
use both the cross-feed and vertical axes simultaneously as a ‘composite’ cross-feed axis. The combined axis
strokes give a larger, effective, composite axis stroke on an inclined plane. Because of this requirement, there is
some comprise on 1) above and in a couple of places such as at middle of the part, near top dead centre, the
flame touches briefly on the mandrel surface as the machine is at the limits of travel on two axes.
Using Cadfil software, it was possible to meet these challenges and to achieve accurate tape placement The final
software solution in Cadfil was very simple to use, once the additional constraints of the machine had been
identified and configured into the Cadfil NC post-processor.
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