Filament Winding

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FILAMENT WINDING

Steelhead Composites is a leader in filament wound pressure vessel manufacture and design and we have the expertise to manufacture pressure vessels to your specifications. We fabricate our carbon fiber pressure vessels with a sophisticated four-axis filament winder. Our filament winding machine can wind three vessels simultaneously, and can place up to 235 feet per second of either tow-preg or wet fiber. We can handle vessels up to 30 inches outside diameter and 10 feet long. Our advanced software allows us to design complex fiber patterns for COPV’s of almost any shape, including asymmetric features and curves. 

Steelhead Composites has a proven track record in contract manufacturing. One design contract for a customer was a durable, light-weight pressure vessel that saved significant weight over the all-metal alternative. We designed and fabricated the liner and the composite overwrap. Another manufacturing project Steelhead Composites completed was wet-winding of a customer’s brand new carbon fiber tank design. The customer had a short deadline, and we helped them iterate on a tight schedule to meet their project goals.

We invite you to let us build your COPV’s. Steelhead Composites can design a pressure vessel from scratch fit your design envelope, or we can manufacture a COPV to your exacting specifications. We can assist in material selection, pattern design, and fabrication methods. Steelhead Composites can fabricate one-off vessels or a run of one thousand. We look forward to manufacturing your next pressure vessel!

By: Jake Schrader

 

Custom Metal Spinforming

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CUSTOM METAL SPINFORMING

Steelhead Composites can design and fabricate Aluminum liners using a spin forming method customized to meet your needs. Spinforming is a hot forming process that rotates a metal tube around its central axis (similar to a lathe), softens the material by adding adequate heat, and then forms the material to its final shape by taking a series of passes with a forming roller. One of the primary advantages of spinforming is that domes can be formed onto a tube to create an entirely seamless part. Unlike welded construction, closed ended seamless liners when used in a composite pressure vessels can withstand repeated exposure to high stresses. Another advantage is the low tooling cost relative to other metal forming processes, placing spinforming at the top of the list as a way to prototype and manufacture your next design.

Steelhead Composites’ CNC-controlled spinformer, combined with our in-house machining and inspection capabilities, allow fast turnaround times for prototypes and short production runs. Our custom spinformer, built by MJC Engineering, can spinform liners with outer diameters ranging from 4 in (10 cm) up to 16 in (41 cm), and lengths from 15 in (38 cm) up to 110 in (2.8 m). 

 

The machine has 3 independent, hydraulically-actuated, CNC-controlled axes of motion that provide precise, repeatable dome forming and necking, using either oscillator type motion or x-y spinning.

Our engineering department is ready to assist you at any point in the process by combining our knowledge in pressure vessel design with our advanced manufacturing capabilities. These capabilities include computer aided design (CAD), state-of-the-art finite element analysis (FEA), and custom computer aided manufacturing (CAM) software. Our design process includes 3-D solid modeling of the finished liner, which can then be analyzed to predict stresses on the material during forming, as well as stresses on the material for a given end application. Upon approval of the design, our custom CAM software generates the spinforming roller paths to create first articles. The final shape of the spinformed liner is confirmed with our in-house portable coordinate measuring machine (CMM) before starting prototyping or production.

Contact Steelhead Composites today to discuss your metal spinforming needs!

By: Mike Stewart, Production Engineer