A novel process and fully automated machine for high-speed three-dimensional rotary braiding

摘要

The most advanced automated 3-D braiders recently developed in the US and Germany are described and their principal features analysed. Paper presented to the 84th Textile Institute Annual World Conference, Raleigh, NC, March 2005 Three-dimensional (3-D) braided textile preforms for structural applications are fast gaining interest. The huge potential of 3-D braided composites becomes more and more obvious with recent developments in automated, computer-controlled 3-D braiders. Such machines are capable of processing hundreds, even thousands of yarns into complex shape fabric products using various 3-D braiding processes. Recent progress brings new hopes to satisfy continuously growing industry demands for larger size complex shape 3-D braided preforms for composites at higher production speed and lower cost. In the next few years 3-D braiding machines will certainly gain sufficient production speed and become commercially competitive with other textile preforming technologies.