ARTICLE IN PRESS

Materials
& Design
Materials and Design xxx (2005) xxx–xxx
www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

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 must be maintained during the manufacturing process.

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
*
Corresponding author. +60 3 86567101; fax: +60 3 86567099.
E-mail address: sapuan@eng.upm.edu.my (S.M. Sapuan).
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
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2 F.H. Abdalla et al. / Materials and Design xxx (2005) xxx–xxx
θ
Fig. 1. Schematic of the wet filament winding process [1].
of its greater torque capabilities and accuracy when
operating under conditions of heavy loading. For
delivery system, rolls of continuous fibers are fed into
a resin bath which is mounted onto the carriage rails
that are commonly placed overhead to provide greater
workroom. Generally, the shape is a surface of revolu-
tion and may or may not include end closures. When
the required number of layers is applied, the wound
form is cured and the mandrel removed. The material
properties in each layer are constant but may vary from
layer to layer. The mandrel is represented by a hollow
cylinder with uniform effective wall thickness. The man-
drel and the cylinder are of equal length and are axisym-
metrical, so that neither the geometry nor the properties
vary in the circumferential direction. Filament winding
is defined as [2] a technique which ‘‘produces high-
strength and lightweight products; consists basically of
two ingredients; namely, a filament or tape type rein-
forcement and a matrix or resin’’. The concept of fila-
ment winding process had been introduced in early
1940s and the first attempt was made to develop fila-
ment-winding equipment. The equipment that was de-
signed in 1950s was very basic; performing the
simplest tasks using only two axes of motion (spindle
rotation and horizontal carriage). By mid-1970s,
machine design once again made a dramatic shift. This
time the advancement of servo technology entered the
realm of the machine design. High-speed computers al-
lowed for rapid data processing, resulting in smoother
motion and greater fiber placement accuracy. The
1980s and 1990s saw the increased use of computer tech-
nology. Computers and motion control cards became
the essential pieces of hardware that were included in al-
most every machine. Machine speed control was greatly
improved; computer control systems could track posi-
tion and velocity with increased accuracy. Additional
axes of motions were also incorporated into machine de-
sign; allowing for four, five and even six axes of con-
trolled motion.
2. Manufacturing techniques
The properties of a composite product are not only
dependent on the properties of fiber and resin matrix, but
are also dependent on the way by which they are processed.
There are a variety of processing techniques for fabricating
composite parts/structure; resin transfer moulding, auto-
clave moulding, pultrusion and filament winding. Out of
these processes, filament winding involves low cost and is
the fastest technique for manufacturing of fiber reinforced
cylindrical components as high-pressure pipes and tanks.
3. Winding methods
There are two different winding methods: (I) wet
winding, in which the fibers are passed through a resin
bath and wound onto a rotating mandrel (II) prepreg
winding, in which the preimpregnated fiber tows are
placed on the rotating mandrel. Among these winding
methods, wet winding is more common and widely used
for manufacturing fiber reinforced thermosetting matrix
composite cylinders. Compared with prepreg winding,
wet winding has several advantages: low material cost;
short winding time; and the resin formulation which
can be easily varied to meet specific requirements.
3.1. Winding patterns
In filament winding process, the winding tension can
easily be controlled. Winding tension, winding angle
and/or resin content in each layer of reinforcement can
be varied until the desired thickness and strength of
the composite are achieved. The properties of the fin-
ished composite can be varied by the type of winding
pattern selected. In general, there are three basic fila-
ment winding patterns which are as follows.
3.1.1. Hoop winding
It is known as the girth or circumferential winding. In
hoop winding, a high-angle helical winding approaches
an angle of 90°. Each full rotation of the mandrel
advances the band delivery by one full bandwidth as
shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Circumferential or hoop winding [2].
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F.H. Abdalla et al. / Materials and Design xxx (2005) xxx–xxx
Fig. 3. Helical winding [2].
Fig. 4. Polar winding [2].
3.1.2. Helical winding
In helical winding, the mandrel rotates at a constant
speed while the fiber feed carriage transverses back and
forth at a speed regulated to generate the desired helical
angles as shown in Fig. 3.
3.1.3. Polar winding
In polar winding, the fiber passes tangentially to the
polar opening at one end of the chamber, reverses direc-
tion, and passes tangentially to the opposite side of the
polar opening at the other end. In other words, fibers
are wrapped from pole to pole, as the mandrel arm ro-
tates about the longitudinal axis as shown in Fig. 4. It
is used to wind almost axial fibers on domed end type
of pressure vessels. On vessels with parallel sides, a sub-
sequent circumferential winding would be done.
4. The proposed filament winding machine
Schematic layout of the hardware configuration for
proposed filament-winding machine is shown in Fig. 5.
It consists of three main units: the rotary assembly unit,
the delivery unit and the control unit.
4.1. The rotary assembly unit
The rotary assembly consists of two pillar blocks which
were held onto horizontal frame work and motor with a
gearbox. One of the two blocks is fixed and serves as a ref-
3
erence, while the other one is movable and can be adjusted
linearly for varying the mandrel length. Once the mandrel
is seated properly into two freely rotating cup holders, the
movable pillar block is then locked. At the fixed pillar end,
the holder is coupled to the motor gearbox by a system of
pulleys and belt. The gear ratio between the motor and the
gearbox is selected as 1:60 and the reduction ratio between
the pulleys was taken as 1:2, so that the velocity of the
mandrel is fixed to 13.6 rpm as shown in Fig. 6.
4.2. The delivery unit
The delivery unit consists of filament fibers holder,
carriage and lead screw with a guide shaft. The lead
screw is driven by a reversible variable speed motor.
The filament fiber holder is just a table with two shafts,
one used for carrying one or more of the filament fiber
rolls while the other one is used as a guide for the fila-
ment fiber during the fabrication process. The carriage
consists of a container and a system of polished guide
pins. The container was used for carrying the resin mix-
ture while the pins were used as a way to guide the fiber
to the resin bath and to smear off excess resin from the
wetted fibers after the resin bath. Also, the pins were used
to generate tension in the wetted fibers before reaching
the mandrel. A simple mechanism was used to bring back
the smeared resin from the wetted fiber to the container
and reused again in order to reduce the amount of resin
used for preparing the product. An optimum tension of
10 N has been used through this work. This gave a fairly
consistent volume fraction of fibers. It was found [3] that
it is important to generate tension in the later stage of the
resin path when the fibers are well wetted to avoid fiber
damage. Greater tension on wetted fiber produced exces-
sive fiber damage and low tensions produced specimens
with unacceptably small fiber fractions.
4.3. The control unit
The control unit consists of relays, limit switches,
timer and counter as shown in Fig. 7. The function
of the control unit is to control the winding process
in order to get the proper winding sequence, which
is difficult to reach manually, and to safeguard the
motor during operation. The control unit also controls
the amount of end over wind which is required to pre-
vent slippage of the roving when the traverse is re-
versed and the mandrel indexing to ensure that each
roving slightly overlaps the previous one to produce
a uniform lay-up of fibers.
5. Specimen fabrication
The setup of the specimen on the winding machine is
shown in Fig. 6. The fabrication process consists of five
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Fig. 5. Schematic diagram for proposed winding machine.

Fig. 6. Setup of the specimen on the winding machine.

steps as follows: the first step is to fix the mandrel which sin bath, which is a mixture of epoxy resin and hardener,
may be as aluminum or plastic PVC tubes or any differ- using a specific ratio and putting it in the container. The
ent cylindrical mandrel shape on the machine blocks type of epoxy resin and hardeners used in this investiga-
using end fixtures. The second step is to prepare the re- tion were MW 215 TA and MW 215 TB, respectively.
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F.H. Abdalla et al. / Materials and Design xxx (2005) xxx–xxx 5

SW4 Limit Switch

1 2 3

SW3
9 10 11 12 14 13 14 13
CW 8 4 8 12 12 8
OFF 7 3 5 5 9
Relay_1 Relay_2 Relay_3
CCW 6 2 9 1 1 7
5 1 7 11 11
13 14

7 7
SW2 Counter
Auto ON Timer_1 Timer_2
8 8
6 2 2 6
Manual OFF

OFF
N 8 7
ON 1 6
Speed
Controller
2 5
3 4
CCW

CW

Variable Speed
Motor

Fig. 7. Control system circuit for the winding machine.

They were mixed in a ratio of 4:1, respectively. The 90

third step is to pass the fiber tow through the resin
80
Angle of winding (degree)

bath and then on the mandrel through a series of

pins. These pins make the fiber straight and reduce 70
the amount of resin in the fibers. The fourth step is
60
to control the speed of screw to give the proposed
winding angle. The fifth step comes after the layers 50
of fibers were wound onto the mandrel, the specimen
left to rotate on the mandrel for 3 h at room temper- 40

ature to prevent resin dropping, then after solidifica-

30
tion the specimen pulled off the mandrel and then
cut to the required lengths. 20
The relation between winding angle and the speed of 0 50 100 150 200 250 300

the screw for mandrel of diameter 12.7 mm is shown in Screw speed (rpm)
Fig. 8. This has been calculated using the relations Fig. 8. Winding angle versus screw speed.
below
2prN m
h¼ ; ð1Þ
Vc where NS is the screw speed, d is the screw thread
where h is the winding angle, r is the Mandrel radius, Nm distance.
is the Mandrel speed, VC is the carriage linear velocity. It has been found [4], especially for angles between
0° and 90°, that the pattern is considered as a com-
V C ¼ N S
d; ð2Þ plete cover of glass on the mandrel. This has been
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6 F.H. Abdalla et al. / Materials and Design xxx (2005) xxx–xxx
Fig. 9. Specimen fabricated (a) glass fiber, (b) carbon fiber.
obtained after several passes of the carriage forward
and backward so that one cover will be consisting
of ±U that means one cover is actually consisting of
two layers. Samples of the final specimens of different
dimensions after fabrication and machining are shown
in Fig. 9.
6. Conclusion
In a filament winding process, a band of continuous
resin impregnated rovings or monofilaments is wrapped
around a rotating mandrel and then cured either at
room temperature or in an oven to produce the final
product. The technique offers high-speed and precise
method for placing many composite layers. The mandrel
can be cylindrical, round or any shape that does not
have re-entrant curvature. Among the applications of
filament winding are cylindrical and spherical pressure
vessels, pipe lines. Modern winding machines are numer-
ically controlled with higher degrees of freedom for lay-
ing the exact number of layers of reinforcement.
Mechanical strength of the filament wound parts not
only depends on the composition of component material
but also on process parameters like winding angle, fiber
tension, resin chemistry and curing cycle. Good prod-
ucts of different dimensions were produced using this
machine.
Acknowledgments
The authors express their gratitude and sincere appre-
ciation to the Ministry of Science, Technology and
Innovation, Malaysia (MOSTI, Project No. 09-02-04-
0824-EA001) for the financial support, and the Depart-
ment of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering of
the University Putra Malaysia for supporting the group
in undertaking the project.
References
[1] Gutowski TG. Advanced composites manufacturing. New
York: Wiley; 1997.
[2] Babu MS, Srikanth G, Biswas S. Composite fabrication by
filament winding-an insight, 2000. Available from: http://www.Ti-
fac.org.in/news/acfil.html.
[3] Hull D, Legg MJ, Spencer B. Failure of glass/polyester filament
wound pipe. Composites 1978.
[4] Mallick PM. Fiber reinforced composites, materials, manufac-
turing and design. 2nd ed. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc.;
1993.