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 successfully 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 interface. 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.
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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