Reinforcement application technology

Computer Engineering electronics Engineering Civil Engineering

The fibre reinforcement can be applied on the rubber products with different processes. For straight hoses the most used processes are braiding, spiralling, knitting and wrapping. The first three processes have in common that multiple strands of fibres are applied to the product simultaneously on a predetermined pattern in an automated process. The fourth process comprises manual or semi-automated wrapping of rubber sheets reinforced with fabric plies. For the reinforcement of complex shaped rubber products like bellows most manufacturers use these fabric reinforced rubber sheets. These sheets are made by calendering of rubber onto pre-woven fabric plies. The products are manufactured by wrapping (mostly manually) these sheets around a mandrel until enough rubber and reinforcement is applied. However, the disadvantage of using these sheets is that it is impossible to control the positioning of the individual fibres of the fabric when applied on complex shapes. Therefore no geodesic paths can be achieved and therefore also no isotensoid loading is possible. To obtain isotensoide loading on a complex shape, the shape must have an isotensoideal profile and geodesic positioning of the fibre structure is required. This can be achieved by using automated winding processes like filament winding or spiralling. loading..