Textiles: braiding – netting – and lace making – Apparatus – Braiding
Patent
1993-01-06
1995-02-14
Hail, III, Joseph J.
Textiles: braiding, netting, and lace making
Apparatus
Braiding
D04C 322
Patent
active
053884981
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for producing a three-dimensional braid structure, such as a multi-layer braid structure, and to a structure produced by such a method and apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Braided structures are increasingly being used in industry to provide strong, lightweight and non-metallic components. Particular industries requiring such braided structures are the automobile industry and the aircraft industry. The advantage of a braided structure is that such a structure has good tensile strength in all directions as compared with a woven structure which has a relatively limited tensile strength in directions other than those in the direction of the weft and the warp of the yarns comprising the structure.
In order to fit in with industrial requirements, there is a need to provide braid structures in a complex form, that is to say in a form with a cross-section other than that of a simple rectangle or tube, or a moderate variation therefrom. Typical complex forms which are required are forms having, for example, I, J or C cross-sections. Attempts to form such cross-sections in braiding apparatus have previously not been particularly successful since, at any area where there is a re-entrant portion, the yarns of the braid tend to span the entrance and hence defeat the form being sought after.
In other complex forms of structure which do not have re-entrant portions, such as ones sought to have relatively sharp corners or edges, there is a tendency for the braid as laid to be unduly tensioned over the corner or edge and for the braid to open so that the resultant braided structure does not have a uniform strength throughout.
Braided structures are usually of two forms either flat or circular. From "Braiding and Braiding Machines" by W. A. Douglas which was published in 1964 by Centrex Publishing Company, Eindhoven, we know those created in a flat form may be produced in braiding apparatus having a plurality of serpentine tracks and package carriers of yarn which travel the tracks whereby they follow serpentine paths, interbraiding the yarn dispensed by carriers as they do so. At the ends of the paths the carriers are reversed in their direction.
According to US-A-4312261, a traditional way of forming a multi-layer braided structure consists of stacking multiple layers on top of one another and bonding them together, but such structures have virtually no strength in a direction perpendicular to the layers and are liable to fail due to separation or delamination of the layers.
Referring again to "Braiding and Braiding Machines", a braid of a generally tubular cross-section, e.g. circular, may be produced using braiding apparatus in which serpentine tracks are defined in a closed ring and the braid is formed in an area of access of the ring. The yarn package carriers traverse round the serpentine tracks of the ring to follow serpentine paths and lay down the tubular braid as it progresses through the apparatus.
The braid may be formed over a mandrel and this may be of a cross-section other than circular to a limited degree. Multilayer braided structures have been proposed where radial yarns project from a mandrel and the package carriers of yarn weave their yarn around the radial yarns. Such structures have been difficult to manufacture. A novel and improved method and apparatus for constructing a multilayer braid of flat or hollow form where the various layers are interwoven one with the other during the manufacturing process is described in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 501043 dated 29 Mar. 1990 and International Patent Application PCT/GB91/00002. The present invention develops the idea of the multilayer structure described in those patent applications.
One proposal which has been made previously to form complex braid structures is that the structure should be developed as a series of components which are then joined together. As a C structure can effectively be constituted of three simple straight
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Dent Robin
Rose Donald J.
Albany International Corp.
Hail III Joseph J.
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