Technical report Design and fabrication of low cost filament winding machine F.H. Abdalla, S.A. Mutasher, Y.A. Khalid, S.M. Sapuan * , A.M.S. Hamouda, B.B. Sahari, M.M. Hamdan Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia Received 2 March 2005; accepted 20 June 2005 Abstract In general, the composite pipes are fabricated using glass fiber and polyester resin matrix by hand lay-up and also by 2-axis fil- ament winding machine. In this work, a filament winding machine was designed and developed for the fabrication of pipes and round shape specimens. A lathe-type machine and a wet winding method were used in the design of the machine. It provides a capa- bility for producing pipe specimens with an internal diameter up to 100 mm and lengths up to 1000 mm. The range of the winding angle, or the fiber orientation angle, starts from 20° to 90° depending on the mandrel diameter used. Mandrel speed is kept constant as 13.6 revolutions per minute (rpm) while the speed of screw of delivery unit varies from 0 rpm to a maximum of 250 rpm. In the filament winding process used, a single glass roving is drawn through a bath of pre-catalyzed resin which is mounted on the lead screw by the rotating mandrel. A control unit was used to control the whole process and achieve regular winding and good surface finish. Tube samples and other circular specimens of different dimensions were produced using this machine for the different mechanical tests and applications. Ó 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Keywords: Filament winding; Composite tube; Glass fiber; Matrix; Fiber orientation angle 1. Introduction Filament winding has emerged as the primary process for composite cylindrical structures fabrication at low cost. In this process, composite layers are successively wound on a rotating mandrel, as presented in Fig. 1. The layers may be wrapped at different angles varying from hoop layers, which are perpendicular to the cylin- der axis, to helical layers which are at an angle to the cyl- inder axis. The construction of composite cylinder by filament winding consists of three major steps [1], the first is the design, which includes the selection of mate- rials, geometry, and fiber orientations while the second is fiber placement, the mechanical means by which the fibers are placed in their proper positions. Finally, the third is the selection and control of conditions which must be maintained during the manufacturing process. A process for fabricating a composite structure in which continuous reinforcements (filament, wire, yarn, tape, or other), either previously impregnated with a matrix material or impregnated during the winding, are placed over a rotating and removable form or mandrel in a pre- scribed way to meet certain stress conditions. The rein- forced fibers are usually made of glass, Kevlar or carbon. Owing to simplicity of process, the hardware configuration is quite standard, and generally involves two main sub-systems; the rotary assembly and the delivery system. The rotary assembly consists of two structural blocks; one fixed and the other linearly movable unit in which a 2-axis mechanically driven mandrel is mounted onto its holders. On the fixed end, the holder is connected to a rotating shaft, which is coupled to either a gear or a chain or belt reduction system, or directly to the motor unit. Generally, an AC or servo-motor is used because 0261-3069/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2005.06.015 * Corresponding author. +60 3 86567101; fax: +60 3 86567099. E-mail address: sapuan@eng.upm.edu.my (S.M. Sapuan). www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes Materials and Design xxx (2005) xxx–xxx Materials & Design ARTICLE IN PRESS