CADFIL®-Pressure
Spheres
Cadfil-Sphere allows the rapid development of ultra-high performance spherical pressure vessels. Spheres and hemispheres
made with the package have also been succesfully used in ballistic protection applications.

The system can be supplied as an additional option for the powerful CADFIL-Axsym package or can be sold as a separate
package. Sphere winding has a quick and simple parametric programming inferface. The advanced 3D graphics and
visualisation are the same as the world leading CADFIL-Axsym software.

All Cadfil software operates on standard PC hardware using Windows 95 or higher.
Winding programs are created with a number of layers. A series of different winding angles is used, ranging from low pole to
pole windings, to hoop windings around the equator of the sphere. Highly efficient quasi-isotropic laminates can be produced
with near uniform thickness. These structures are capable of withstanding enormous internal or external pressures. The user
specifies properties such as the fibre band width and thickness, the sphere geometries and machine clearance parameters. The
user can then specify the wind angle of each layer, or automatically let the software determine the winding angles required to
achieve a uniform thickness.

A full winding pattern is generated that can wind all the layers and layer transitions without any stops. The vessel can have
equal end openings or can have one open end (for a fill tube or boss) and one fully enclosed end. Vessels can be wound in
carbon, glass, Kevlar or other high performance fibres.
This sphere is 280mm in diameter and was wound with 4
rovings of 167tex aramid. The wind is 8-9mm thick all over
with 26 layers. The winding time was less than 35 minutes.
With the Cadfil Sphere winding software, the control
program was generated in less than 2 minutes and could be
transferred to the winder to produce this winding, with no
modification.
Other Spherical parts in Toray T300 carbon made with Cadfil software, with a wall thickness of 6mm and an internal volume
of 1 litre, consistently had burst pressures well in excess of 3000bar (45,000psi).
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