Overbraiding simulation

Optical inspection of the braid formation zone during manufacturing of preforms from reinforcement fibers for defect detection purposes

“…the sports and leisure industry [e.g., climbing ropes or parachute cords (Michael et al, 2016)], electrical engineering and oil hydraulics (e.g., electric shielding or protection of hoses) or medical technology [e.g., stents (Aibibu et al, 2016)]. More specifically, braiding of reinforcement fibers in order to manufacture preforms for composite parts has well-known applications in the automotive [e.g., pillars for passenger compartments (Hill, 2003;Bulat et al, 2016)], aviation [e.g., helicopter landing gears (Thuis, 2004a;2004b)], space [e.g., rocket nozzles (van Ravenhorst and Akkerman, 2016b;van Ravenhorst, 2018)] as well as in the sports and leisure industry [e.g., lightweight bicycle rims (Kind and Drechsler, 2015;Bulat et al, 2016;Zuurendonk, 2018)]. During braiding of these often hollow structures that may be curved and show a varying cross-section, typical defects such as a generally "fuzzy" braid due to frictional yarn abrasion, yarn loops due to a loss in tension of a single yarn or local yarn gaps and yarn breakages due to an increased tension of an individual yarn may occur (Ebel et al, 2013;Ebel et al, 2016).…”