Design and fabrication of low cost filament winding machine

In general, the composite pipes are fabricated using glass fiber and polyester resin matrix by hand lay-up and also by 2-axis filament 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 capability 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.