A composite shaft or rod formed by filament winding. The composite shaft is a solid shaft and the filament winding does not involve a mandrel. A filament core can be suspended between rotatable spindles and the filament materials can be laid directly onto the filament spindle, without any mandrel. A plurality of payout eyes can be used to simultaneously lay filament materials onto the filament core. A bridge plug can be formed with the solid composite shaft located within the bridge plug shell of the bridge plug.

A connector for connecting two members having a body of composite material consisting of reinforcing fibers embedded in a plastic matrix of resin, for connecting the two members to one another, and having a housing, a mounting ring installed in the housing, a swivel installed in the mounting ring and capable of allowing, by swivelling in the mounting ring, articulation between the two members to be connected, the swivel acting as a fastening area for one of the two members. The reinforcing fibers form, with the resin, plies which, when stacked, form a laminate, and the mounting ring is fastened in the housing of the body of the connector to prevent any movement of the mounting ring relative to the body of the connector.

A sliding contact surface-forming material, and method of making the material are disclosed, the material having minimal swelling and excellent friction-proof and wear-proof characteristics when used in moist environments such as in water, and improved in the friction-proof and wear-proof characteristics under dry friction conditions such as in the open air, particularly under oscillation conditions for testing journal. The material includes a reinforcing base impregnated with a resol-type phenolic resin having polytetrafluoroethylene resin dispersed therein. The reinforcing base is composed of a woven fabric formed by using, as each of the warp and the weft, a ply yarn which is formed by paralleling at least two strands of a single twist yarn spun from fluorine-containing resin fiber and a single twist yarn spun from polyester fiber, and by twisting them in the direction opposite to the direction in which the single twist yarns were spun.

A driveshaft has an elongated monolithic composite tube with a front joint at one end thereof and a rear joint at an opposite end thereof. The tube has an inner layer formed of glass fibers coaxially wound on top of one other. The tube has outer layer wound directly on the inner layer. The outer layer is formed substantially of carbon fibers. A ratio of a thickness of the outer layer to the thickness of the inner layer is between 0.8 and 1.2.

A method of manufacture of a shaft including positioning a prefabricated wedge member onto a cylindrical mandrel, winding a fibre material onto the mandrel, the fibre material extending over at least a part of the wedge member, allowing a matrix material impregnated into the fibre material to cure, and machining away at least part of the fibre material in the region of the wedge member to expose fibres thereof.

Disclosed is a self-lubricating composite friction part (1) that can be subjected, during operation, to temperatures that are at least equal to 250 C. The part includes, along the friction surface (2), a single layer of a material consisting of weft and warp yarns made of polytetrafluoroethylene, the material being impregnated with a thermostable resin having a glass transition temperature that is at least equal to 250 C. It is applied to a reinforcing layer (3).

A method of fabricating a connecting rod (6) out of composite material using three-dimensional fabric of woven reinforcing fibers, the connecting rod (6) extending in a main direction. The method comprises the steps of: cutting out one or more base pieces (7, 8) from a three-dimensional fabric; cutting out one or more reinforcing pieces (9, 10) from a three-dimensional fabric; installing the various pieces (7, 8, 9, 10) on a support in order to shape them; securing the various pieces (7, 8, 9, 10) to one another by stitching (12, 13, 14, 15) using reinforcing fibers in order to constitute a reinforcing fiber preform; installing the preform on a mandrel; and injecting resin into the preform and polymerizing the resin.

An elongate tubular shaft body having a stack of wrapped layers of fibrous reinforcement in a resin matrix, a portion of the stack of wrapped layers circumferentially surrounding a first surface part of a fibrous layer has a non-constant width which varies non-linearly with a change in radius of an inner elongate circumferential surface in the portion, and wherein the fibrous reinforcement has fibres that are, along the length of the elongate tubular body, constantly oriented with respect to a cylindrical coordinate system about the longitudinal axis of the elongate tubular body, the fibre orientation in any said portion being independent of the geometry of the inner and outer elongate circumferential surfaces of that portion.

A processing equipment is provided, in which a carrier structure with at least one guide pin is arranged in a ring center area of a ring body of a frame, and a wire-supply device disposed on the ring body can supply wires to the center structure, so the wires can be woven around the guide pin and formed on the carrier structure so that the wire covers the carrier structure to form an exposed area around the guide pin.