A very critical element in the manufacture of filament wound composite structures (FWCS) is the precise tension control of the roving filament (at the point it contacts the part). Presently, there are no off-the-shelf tensioners able to maintain accurate, dynamic tension at the roving spool. Consequently, both the manufacture and the R&D of FWCS technology is severely handicapped. The ideal tensioner must compensate for its own friction and inertia, and other dynamic factors which occur between the tensioner and the part. Helman engineering has built an advanced tensioner which has solved one of the technical problems stated, and has shown that a new approach is not only cost efficient and feasible but also essential to the advancement of composite structure technology. The effort proposed is to perform advanced research to gather the necessary information in order to design a new revolutionary, computer-controlled tensioning system which will deliver accurate, programmable tension to the part (compensating/correcting for all factors which produce errors throughout the delivery system), communicate with the winder computer during operations and record the true, dynamic tension history data of the filament wound structure.
