Filament Winding: an Integrated Simulation Environment for Automated Cell Programming

Filament winding is a process in which tensioned resin-impregnated continuous fibers are placed on a specified path on a mandrel. Automated systems have been adopted to deliver the fiber with a fixed level of accuracy. Process simulation is a very important question in automated applications. Moreover, the necessity to process complex shape objects leads to consider different alternatives to deliver the fiber along the model. In this paper, we developed a methodology to obtain simulation models in an integrated software environment. The proposed solution, on the one hand, focuses on the exploitation of the degrees of freedom in the cell, on the other, it considers the part program generation when a rotating mandrel is adopted. A test case has been realized in order to check the feasibility of our approach. Two different filament winding cell models have been developed by following the proposed approach and an in-depth analysis is carried out in order to investigate on both solutions.