Hi there,
I have just purchased a 4X-23 for a student project, ARIS Space, at ETH Zürich. I have a question regarding the X-Winder Designer Software. Our (me and my teams') aim is to manufacture a filament-wound composite-overwrapped pressure vessel with two polar openings.
When generating winding patterns and visualizing them in the Designer Software, there is always at least one path which strikes across the polar opening, as in the following image: Some of the generated winding patterns are just plain nonsensical and I am a little confused and not at all sure how to interpret the output of the software - I would appreciate very much if somebody could answer the following questions:
- do the lines shown in the image represent the middle of the filament? (in my case, the filament is 7mm wide). Or do they represent the inner/outer edge of the filament?
- Does the number of groups have something to do with the filament traveling across the polar opening? This may not be possible in our design, as there are threaded valves protruding from the polar openings. Does the filament need to be reattached to the mandrel after each "group" has been wound? Or does this happen continually?
- How is the best way to design a proper winding pattern in the X Winder Designer software? I have just been experimenting with the "phi" angle input in the software and trial-and errored it :) For a polar winding pattern, there are analytical formulas to determine the winding angle depending on mandrel geometry to obtain full coverage. But I don't see any possibility to manually implement a winding angle in the Designer Software - am I doing something wrong? Is there also the possibility to implement friction parameters?
- Is there better Software available online to design the winding pattern without blowing the budget while being compatible with the X Winder?
Thanks a lot for your feedback!!
Greetings,
Chris
Comments
Hi Chris,
A good resource to help answer your 4-Axis winding questions is this video on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/MxvUU7Ig1yI
This video answers why the winding angle is a dependent variable, not an independent variable that you have direct control over, it also answers how to change/modify Phi and Delta angles and how they effect the size of the polar opening. The graphical repensentaiton of the winding pattern in the Designer Software is just that, a simple end view of the mandrel and how the filament is arranged in groups and windings per group. There are some other videos on our YT channel that will help with your introduction to the X-Winder, so please have a quick look at them.
In answer to your specific quesitons:
(1) thelines show the middle of the filament
(2) No, but you can change the angle Phi for each layer to make the polar opening bigger or smaller as described in the video I listed above at the 6:05 time mark.
(3) In a 4-axis winding, there are only a handful of patterns that will provide full surface coverage depending on your combnination of filament width, diameter, length, etc. You do not have independent control over the winding angle as you would in a 2-Axis winding. Typically you are presented with a list of winding angles that "fit" and you need to select one of these patterns for each layer.
(4) With your pressure vessel, you can have helical layers and hoop (almost ~90 degree filament orientation) layers. Note that the winder will operate continuously to complete all layers, excepting transition from a hoop layer to a helical layer where you'll need to manually intervene.
(5) As you may know, other winding software solutions are many times the cost of our entire machine+our software ...
Turner
Hi Turner,
thanks a lot for your quick answer, I appreciate it!!
I have watched the abovementioned video, it's a great intro to the software. Thanks to your answers, they helped me a lot :)
I would like to specifically prevent the filament riding across the polar opening as in the image of the pattern in my original post. Is this possible? How can I achieve this aside from trial and error? In all my previous attempts, I could not generate a "clean" winding pattern, which does not ride across the polar opening yet. It would be great to have a tool to filter out generated patterns such as these (see the image below) or to automatically generate phi angles based on the preferred size of the polar opening.
We will try out some patterns in the next days just to get cosy with the winder and learn how it works - we will determine if the filament riding over the opening poses a problem in the "real world", maybe it's not a big deal.
Thanks again for your answer!
Greetings,
Chris