THIS IS THE FIRST CONTEMPORARY BOOK to treat filament winding with a focus on automation. The purpose of this book is to provide detailed procedures for automated filament winding for complex shapes, to chronicle the progress that has been made in robotic filament winding along with ancillary processes that support the deposition process. It is also to show what has and what can be done to advance the process and science of low-cost composite fabrication by filament winding. The need for this book has been evident because the bulk of filament winding machinery purchases now have a greater number of control axes and substantial automation in ancillary operations, such as mandrel removal, and cure (Chapter 2). There has also been a geographical shift with the process. Literature searches have shown that more professional papers now emerge from Canada, South Korea, and the Netherlands than from the United States. Investigators at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed two new iterations of the standard test and evaluation bottle (Chapter 8).

This book builds on three previous publications, Filament Winding, Composite Structure Fabrication, SAMPE Publishers, 1991 and 1999; and, S. Koussios, Filament Winding, A Unified Approach, Delft University Press, 2004; along with the many individual publications and presentations of the authors of the present work. The previous books addressed mainly aerospace applications and offered hands-on instructions for making components using the rudimentary, by today’s standards, winders. Among other areas, the previous books presented geodetic and nongeodetic roving trajectories, kinematics with collision control, and derived articulated pressurizable structures.

Four of the nine chapters in this book (Chapters 2 to 5) address automation directly. Now the highest automation is used in the commercial arena, for example, pipes. The kinds of structures that can be produced are shown in Chapters 6 and 7. Finally, Chapter 9 addresses the actual processes of pressure vessel analysis, fabrication, and testing.

I want to dedicate this book to two mentors and friends, Yuri Tarnopol’skii and Lowrie McLarty, who both gently prodded me toward composite physical and mental activity and who corrected some of my more glaring errors. I still hold them in my memory. I would also like to acknowledge the excellent editorial staff at ASM International. They were thoroughly competent, professional, and furthermore, easy to work with.