Braiding and filament winding

This chapter covers two complementary continuous fibre deposition systems for producing prismatic shapes: braiding and winding. Filament winding, developed from an ancient lathe mechanism, has been widely used in the composites industry for producing small pipes to aircraft fuselage sections, with diameters approaching 6 m. Industrial braiding is another ancient concept that originated from the ceremonial maypole dance, interlacing multiple tows in two or three orientations around a three-dimensional geometry. This chapter brings together both processes to highlight their similarities and differences in terms of manufacturing approach, mechanical performance, recent technology advancements, and scope for future applications, taking a brief look at the hybrid braid-winding process that can be used to produce optimised quadriaxial quasi-isotropic fibre architectures. Basic governing equations for helix angle and cover factor are presented as a function of rotational speed and translational speed of the fibres. The structural performance of the braid, filament-wound, or hybrid composites is discussed in the context of applications such as pressure vessels.