ROTH Composites developed a carbon fiber winding machine for Ariane 6 rocket components. ROTH's filament winding machine is specially designed to handle Ariane 6 rocket boosters and is one of the largest machines of its kind in the world.
ROTH Composites Machinery (Steffenberg, Germany) announced on June 26 that it has worked closely with space propulsion system manufacturer Avio (Colleferro, Italy) to develop a filament winding machine. Avio is using Roth's new machine as Arianespace (Evry, France) Ariane 6's next-generation launch vehicle manufactures propulsion rockets.
The booster of Ariane 6 is about 15 meters long and 3.6 meters in diameter. The booster housing is made entirely of carbon fiber, replacing the steel housing previously used for Ariane 5.
A new generation of Ariane 6 rocket
ROTH's filament winding machine is specially designed to handle Ariane 6 rocket boosters and is one of the largest machines of its kind in the world. It weighs about 100 tons, has a maximum length of 17 meters, a diameter of 3.6 meters, and a winding mandrel weighs about 120 tons. The machine is equipped with three carriages for three different winding processes-each carriage has a length of 7.4 meters and can move 90 meters per minute.
The first bracket is used to wind the heat-resistant tape onto the mandrel on the non-molded composite structure (the first layer in the reinforcer). After the tape is vulcanized, the prepreg winding process is realized by using a second carrier.
The third carriage is equipped with the fiber delivery head of Avio's patented automatic tape laying machine (ATL). This technology can precisely lay the tape to provide complex geometries for the attachment of the intensifier. The tape is trimmed by an ultrasonic cutting head. ATL technology was jointly developed by Avio and Roth and another Italian partner.
It is expected that from 2020, Ariane 6 will carry out a space transportation satellite for the European Space Agency (ESA). It is said that due to the winding process, the weight of its booster grade has been reduced by up to 35%.