- 9 February 2006 -
Trends, advances and innovations in filament winding

Business looks to be picking up in the filament winding industry. Michael L. Skinner of
Skinner Creative Inc reviews some of the latest developments in equipment and applications.

6-axis CNC controlled winder just installed in India by CNC Technics.

The filament winding industry looks like a growth industry again. After suffering through several years with stagnant growth, many of the companies producing machinery and software for the industry are reporting robust sales this year.

“The increase in sales over the past two years has been great,” according to John Green of the Green Sales Guy Co, the US agent for EHA Spezialmaschinenbau - BSD Filament Winding Technology. “Sales are definitely perking up.”

Much of this increase in sales is going into the developing world – primarily India, Asia and the Middle East.

“Sales for winders into the Middle East probably have increased by 30% per year over the past few years,” Green confirms.

“Our experience is that there has been significant growth in filament winding in India during the last 12 months and this looks set to considerably increase again in 2006,” notes Andrew Priestley of the Cadfil Filament Winding Software Company (Crescent Consultants). “This is not just in the low technology two-axis sector either, there is a major trend towards four-axis machines using the latest computer controllers.”

BSD resin bath with individual fibre take-up for multiple spindle winding.

Mr B. Vijay Krishna of CNC Technics Pvt Ltd also says sales are brisk: “We have been selling machines to customers mostly in India, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UK.”

Krishna reports that CNC Technics has recently developed and delivered a six-axis filament winding machine with a Siemans 840D controller for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the top Science and Engineering University in India, for its new composite centre. This system is also using the latest Cadfil filament winding software for axisymmetric shapes and non-axi-symmetric shapes such as pipe bends.

CNC Technics has also developed its own new control system named JOKAM, which is capable of controlling up to six axes simultaneously.

“This is a low cost controller with very little hardware and is extremely versatile,” claims Krishna. “It can run all popular winding program generation software.”

In Western Europe and the USA, a growing trend is the move to more automated, more integrated and higher throughput systems. John Green recently visited the Ragasco (a member of the Hexagon Group) facility in Norway.

Large diameter acid storage tank being filament wound in Indonesia.

“I was able to see the automated production of filament wound LPG tanks,” he reports. “I have never seen anything like this at any filament winding facility on earth. It was awesome. They are producing over 400 000 LPG tanks per year on a five spindle BSD winder. Two operators watch the automated production with very little intervention needed. Fully automated systems control loading and unloading of the mandrels, the resin bath level, automatic fibre tie-on, automatic fibre cut-off, and automatic loading of the wound parts into the oven. It was truly an amazing facility.”

Green reports that another facility, at Beko Technologies in the USA, has a BSD filament winding machine running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week making membrane filters.

"What is interesting is that the winder winds parts for many hours at a time with no operator around,” he notes. “This includes the night shift where the winder is continually producing filament wound filters. There are fibre breakage sensors to notify someone if a fibre breaks. Otherwise, the winder just keeps going and going.”

Joe Jansen of Magnum Venus Products reports that they see an increase in machinery going into the power industry and to companies that manufacture piping systems, with many customers wanting complete ‘turn key’ systems.

“Customers also want equipment for very large vertical/horizontal tanks,” he says. “We have supplied up to 120 ft (36 m) dia-meter machines.”

Jansen also sees an increase in machinery sales to the Middle East.

“We are selling about 50% domestic (US), with most of our international sales in Europe and the Middle East,” he states.

Many of the machines going into the Middle East are used to manufacture fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) pipe and tanks.

The increased demand for large diameter tanks is confirmed by Alfred Newberry of FEMech Engineering. He has just finished the installation of a very large vertical winding machine in Indonesia for the production of acid storage tanks. The tanks are 20 m in diameter and almost 16 m tall.

Green notes that BSD is also seeing more demand for ‘turnkey’ systems.

“More and more filament winding companies want to have a fully automated process,” he explains. “That is what I am seeing. BSD has done a few automated systems. They include CNG factories in China where BSD supplies the liner machine, the winding equipment and the ovens. BSD has also helped with fully automated pipe production systems in Europe. This is similar to the Ragasco set-up, but for pipes and tubes. There is fully automated handling of mandrels, automated winding, loading to the oven, unloading from the oven to the extractor etc.”

Magnum Venus Products has also seen an increase in the demand for more automated, higher production, machinery. An innovation to address this need, that they have developed, is the ‘dual mandrel drive.’ It consists of a winding machine with two spindle (mandrel) drives, one on each side of the horizontal carriage. The delivery system can be swung 180° to allow winding on one side of the carriage while the part on the opposite side is being cured, removed or prepared for winding. This benefits their customers with time and equipment savings. The winding machine can always be winding with no waiting for mandrels to be moved in and out of the machine.

 

This is an extract from a feature which will be published in full in the February 2006 issue of Reinforced Plastics magazine. The complete article will also be available at www.sciencedirect.com.

 

 

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