AN OVERVIEW OF RECENT ADVANCES IN 3-D ROTARY BRAIDING TECHNOLOGY

摘要

A brief historic overview of rotary braiding processes, machines and modern trends in this technology opens the paper. Among most advanced automated 3-D rotary braiders are the ones recently developed and built by 3TEX, Inc. (USA) and August Herzog Maschinenfabrik GmbH & Co. KG (Germany). The two braiding processes and automated braiding machines have similarities and distinctions, which are analyzed in the paper. Specifically, a recently patented novel braiding process and machine developed by 3TEX uses independently controlled rotary gripping forks and allows utilizing all of the available yarn carrier spaces on the horngear wings, while in all other known machines of this type half of the spaces must be left vacant to avoid collision of moving yarn carriers when they are transferred from one horngear to the other. This novel approach enables to maximize the product cross section with respect to the braider bed size. This also provides practically unlimited diversity of complex shape 3-D braids that can be manufactured. A modular 3-D braiding machine construction is another distinctive features of this new development, which greatly increases capability of manufacturing large cross section preforms. Examples of typical 3-D braided preforms produced on this new machine conclude the paper.