Filament count reduction for carbon fiber tow
AssigneeCFA Mills, Inc.
InventorDonald Faulkner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process and apparatus for separating a carbon filament tow into a set of reduced filament count bundles. The process includes feeding a tow of carbon filaments into a guide array, mechanically splitting the tow within the guide array into filament bundles, removing a coating from the filament bundles, feeding the filament bundles into a guide pin assembly to separate the filament bundles with a reduced filament count from one another, applying a false twist to the filament bundles to loosen individual filaments then recombining the individual filaments of each filament bundle into a re-bundled ribbon. Coatings may be applied to each re-bundled ribbon prior to winding each re-bundled ribbon onto a take-up.
Claims19
A method for separating a carbon filament tow into reduced filament count bundles comprising:
- feeding a tow of carbon filaments with a first filament count into a guide array using a set of rollers to maintain tension on the tow;
- mechanically splitting the tow within the guide array into a plurality of filament bundles with a reduced filament count;
- feeding the filament bundles into a guide pin assembly to separate the filament bundles with a reduced filament count from one another;
- applying a false twist to the filament bundles to loosen individual filaments in the filament bundles;
- recombining the individual filaments of each filament bundle into a re-bundled ribbon;
- winding each re-bundled ribbon onto a take-up,
- wherein the re-bundled ribbons have a reduced filament count that is lower than the first filament count.
A method for separating a carbon filament tow into reduced filament count bundles comprising:
- feeding a tow of carbon filaments with a first filament count into a guide array using a set of rollers to maintain tension on the tow;
- mechanically splitting the tow within the guide array into a plurality of filament bundles with a reduced filament count;
- feeding the filament bundles into a guide pin assembly to separate the filament bundles with a reduced filament count from one another;
- applying a false twist to the filament bundles to loosen individual filaments in the filament bundles;
- recombining the individual filaments of each filament bundle into a re-bundled ribbon;
- winding each re-bundled ribbon onto a take-up,
- wherein the re-bundled ribbons have a reduced filament count that is lower than the first filament count,
- further comprising determining a number of individual filaments in each re-bundled ribbon using a fiber sensor and
- when the fiber sensor determines that the reduced filament counts in the re-bundled ribbons do not equal the desired filament count, transferring one or more individual filaments from a re-bundled ribbon having a filament count higher than a desired filament count to another re-bundled ribbon having a filament count lower than the desired filament count.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.