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The filament winding technique has evolved in recent decades moving from classical lathe-type towards winding with an increased number of degrees of freedom using more complex equipment. These advancements complicate the selection of an optimum toroid winding machine set-up for the realization of particular winding methods and correlating part designs. This is further complicated by the variety of approaches. In order to investigate existing equipment technologies regarding feasibility, operational and economic aspects, different filament winding equipment is established in an experimental environment. Thereby advantageous solutions can be assigned to particular winding methods and the selection of appropriate filament winding equipment is facilitated.

Filament winding has emerged as the main process for carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) fabrication, and tension control plays a key role in enhancing the quality of the winding products. With the continuous improvement of product quality and efficiency, the precision of the tension control system is constantly improving. In this paper, a novel tension control method is proposed, which can regulate the fiber tension and transport speed of the winding process by governing the outputs of three different driven rollers (the torque of the unwind roll, the torque of the magnetic powder brake roller, and the speed of the master speed roller) in three levels. The mechanical structures and dynamic models of the driven rollers and idle rollers are established by considering the time-varying features of the roller radius and inertia. Moreover, the influence of parameters and speed variation on fiber tension is investigated using the increment model. Subsequently, the control method is proposed by applying fiber tension in three levels according to the features of the three driven rollers. An adaptive fuzzy controller is designed for tuning the PID parameters online to control the speed of the master speed roller. Simulation is conducted for verifying the performance and stability of the proposed tension control method by comparing with those of the conventional PID control method. The result reveals that the proposed method outperforms the conventional method. Finally, an experimental platform is constructed, and the proposed system is applied to a gear toroidal winding machine. The performance and stability of the tension control system are demonstrated via a series of experiments using carbon fiber under different reference speeds and tensions. This paper proposes a novel tension control method to regulate the fiber tension and transport speed.

Most of the above studies considered the dynamics of driven rollers in the models but the behavior of idle rollers was ignored. Consequently, the models were under some limited conditions, which ignored detailed complex tension dynamics. On the other hand, most research focused on dynamic modeling and control strategy design, but the mechanical structure and the influence of parameter variation on fiber tension were ignored. In this paper, a novel tension control method is presented, which can regulate the tension and speed of the filament winding process. The mechanical structure and dynamic model of the system are established, and the influences of the parameter and the speed variation on fiber tension are examined. Subsequently, according to the features of driven rollers and the influence of variation, the control method is proposed by regulating the outputs of the torque of unwind roll, the torque of magnetic powder brake roller, and the speed of the master speed roller in three levels. Simulations are conducted for verifying the effect by comparing the results with those of the conventional PID controller. Finally, the performance of the proposed control system is verified through experimental studies using a filament slider coil winding machine.

The structure of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the mechanical structure of system. In addition, the dynamic models are constructed, and the influence of parameter and speed variation on the rollers is examined. In Section 3, the control strategy is proposed. Simulations are conducted for verifying the effect of the proposed controller by comparing with that of the conventional PID controller in Section 4. In Section 5, the proposed mechanical structure and control strategy are applied to a belt head winding machine, and the experimental study is conducted for verifying the performance of the tension control system.

The process line is divided into three zones (Figure 1): the unwind section, the process section, and the rewind section. In each zone, one or two rollers are driven using motors for transporting the carbon fiber from the unwind roll to the rewind roll. The carbon fiber is delivered from the unwind section to the process section, which consists of the magnetic powder brake roll, the master speed roller, and some idle rollers. In the process section, the carbon fiber passes through the surface of the master speed roller. As the carbon fiber is comprised of thousands of threads, the resin is properly pasted on the surface of the carbon fiber. The master speed roller is driven using an AC servomotor, and the speed is controlled for acquiring the desired speed and tension. The rewind section consists of a four-axis CNC system for acquiring the winding pattern.

The control method of hook type winding machine is shown in Figure 2 in three levels. The control system can regulate the tension and speed of the filament winding process by governing the output of three different driven rolls—the torque of the unwind roll, the torque of the magnetic powder brake roller, and the speed of the master speed roller. In the first level, the unwind roll, which is driven using a torque motor generates a reverse force for applying a pretension to the carbon fiber. The pretension is set at a