A Model for Wet Filament Winding of Composite Cylinders with Arbitrary Thickness

A continuum consolidation is purposed for analyzing the filament winding of thermoset composite cylinders with arbitrary thickness. The model takes account of the variation of both the instantaneous stiffness and the permeability of the mixture with fiber compaction. Due to resin filtration, the structure of the resulting initial-boundary value problem is similar to that of a moving boundary problem. Based on this analogy, a finite difference scheme is devised for the solution of the problem. For the case of winding onto a rigid mandrel, the results point to the existence of an active and a passive zone of consolidation. The results further indicate the possibility that during hoop winding of relatively thick cylinders, the tension can be completely lost in the portion of the passive zone away from the mandrel.