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Spiralling quality on a simple robot setup

Conventional spiralling

Buildup of a spiralled product
Spiralling is an automated fibre placement method to apply reinforcement to rubber products. It is widely applied for the reinforcement of various types of hoses like power steering hoses, fuel hoses and hydraulic hoses. To prevent contact between the fibres and increase the interply adhesion an intermediate layer of rubber is applied between the two spiralled reinforcement layers. Spiralling enables the use of multiple filaments without the negative influences of cross points between fibres. In combination with the right fibre angles this prevents shear stresses between fibres and between fibres and rubber which increases the product life.

Conventional spiralling equipment is mostly suited for continuous (hose) production lines. But many manufacturers have a discontinuous production process in which they manufacture different sizes and types in (many) small series. In some cases this means they have to shut down production processes temporarily to use their spiralling equipment for R&D. Acquiring conventional spiralling equipment is expensive and often does not satisfy these manufacturers needs.

TANIQ's alternative spiralling solution

Spiralling applied by TANIQ
Now TANIQ has developed a method to make spiralling efficient for R&D activities and small series production. Instead of using a conventional 2 disk spiralling machine, we can apply spiralling on a simple industrial robot set-up. Instead of using a spiral ring with multiple fibres at the same time, TANIQ uses fibres that are placed on a spiralling path next to each other. TANIQ is developing design software to calculate optimal fibre reinforcement designs for spiralling of complex shapes. Besides straight hoses we already obtained promising results for more complex shapes such as air springs, expansion joints and turbo charger hoses. The basic setup at TANIQ’s facilities allows 3 meters in length and 1meter in diameter, which can be filled in with one large product or multiple smaller products in a row. TANIQ’s smart fibre placement will reduce the amount of materials needed and the automated production will reduce manual labour to a minimum.