IMPROVING COMPOSITE LAY-UP FOR NONSPHERICAL FILAMENT-WOUND PRESSURE-VESSELS

This paper describes a filament winding process that results in a cons tant thickness lay-up of composite over the end closures of a dome-end ed cylindrical vessel. The winding pattern over the dome ends is based upon the delta-axisymmetric method used for spherical vessels, but th e presence of the cylindrical section requires enhancement of the tech nique to achieve satisfactory coverage. Iterative design of the fibre path is followed by explicit fibre path definition and generation of m achine control instructions. Conclusions are drawn on the relative mer its of producing high performance vessels from this process and from c onventional filament winding techniques. Further work is then proposed to determine the range of vessel geometries for which the technique w ould bring increased performance.