Remscheid, April 07, 2011 - The first Oerlikon Barmag take-up machine for winding carbon fibers was delivered to Russia in February and is currently being commissioned onsite.
The 40 winding positions have been equipped with the WinTrax carbon fiber winder. This manual winder – launched in 2010 – has sparked huge interest in particular from Asia and Russia. Wintrax fulfils the special requirements of carbon fiber production. Carbon fibers are wound at very low speeds - between 0.3 m/min and 20 m/min. As the sensitive fibers must not be guided over any edges, yarn-guiding element rollers have extremely large diameters. The traversing thread-guide comprises two parallel conical rollers. This achieves a very short yarn trailing length. WinTrax offers a positive cost advantage for yarn producers as the winding ratio between the traverse unit and the chuck (precision winding) is electronically-adjustable and can be altered without interrupting the process. This proves to be a huge advantage when it comes to changing the titer. The traversing motion of the traversing thread-guides is achieved by a threaded spindle driven by a reversing motor. Carbon fibers are traditionally deployed within the aerospace sector, but are also being used increasingly in the automobile industry.
