Light-weighting Filament Wound Structures with Hybrid Automated Fiber Placement Process
Abstract
ONR Program Manager: Dr. Anisur Rahman ? Airframe Structures and Materials (Code 351) - Filament winding (FM) is one of the early au,tomated manufacturing methods of composite structures that can produce lightweight and cost-effective cylindrical structures at a si,gnificant high rate. During this manufacturing process, fiber tows are wound on a rotating mandrel either in the hoop direction or i,n a helical pattern. Tows can be either prepreg or dry fibers wetted by resin prior to winding process. During wet winding, the bind,er (thermoset epoxy, polyester, or vinyl ester) is mixed with fiber bundle prior to winding stage. Care must be taken to control the, setting of fiber bundles in liquid resin to achieve uniform resin layer in order to control the radial distribution of fiber volume, fraction. Main control variables for FM are tension applied to each layer, velocity of crosshead that traverses along the axis of m,andrel, and angular velocity of the mandrel. Additionally, the rate of heating of mandrel, if required, must also be controlled. Com,pared to wet winding, dry winding is a cleaner process, but requires additional process steps for pre-impregnating B-staged resin on, to fiber bundles and proper storage until the winding process. With wet winding, the resin formulation can easily be tailored to me,et design specifications at a significantly low cost. Filament winding technique cannot be used for concave surfaces. In addition, t,he fibers cannot be laid up in the axial direction of the mandrel and the angle of helical layers have restriction depending on the,tools. With the hybrid automated fiber placement (AFP) and FM, advantages of both technologies can be combined to increase productiv,ity and performance of filament wound structures. The areas that need fibers in axial direction or drop tows (for thickness reductio,n and convergence zones) can be achieved with AFP system. Also, the dome areas of pressure vessels that require extra materials to w,ithstand stresses in these regions can be achieved with AFP without increasing the weight of the cylindrical portion. With an integr,ated AFP and FM, the transfer time between equipment that can be several hours to several days can be reduced to minutes with fully,automated hybrid process. This abstract is publicly releasable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 13, 2022
- Source ID
- N000142212579
Entities
People
- Waruna Seneviratne
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- Wichita State University