A process for removing contaminants from a fiber reinforcement material, the process comprising: (a) feeding a fiber reinforcement into a heated vessel, (b) passing the fiber reinforcement through the heated vessel, (c) heating a source of fluid medium, (d) feeding the heated fluid medium from (c) into the heated vessel having a passageway in the heated vessel for allowing the heated fluid medium from (c) to enter into the heated vessel, (e) passing the heated fluid medium through the heated vessel; wherein the heated vessel has a passageway for allowing the heated fluid medium from (c) to exit the heated vessel, and (f) contacting the fiber reinforcement passing through the heated vessel with the heated fluid medium passing through the heated vessel such that any contaminants present in or on the fiber reinforcement is sufficiently reduced to provide a purified fiber reinforcement exiting the heated vessel.

Method of forming a fiber-reinforced composite by applying multiple layers of prepreg material at the same time such that the proportion of unidirectional fibers which are orientated in the performing direction are greater than the proportion of unidirectional fibers which are obliquely orientated relative to said performing direction. This method controls the presence of overlaps, non-overlaps or gaps between the adjacent turns of the winding, thus improving the quality of the tube. This method also permits a reduction of the manufacturing costs. This method further enables production of tubes in a continuous way with different mandrels arranged to follow each other in a sequence which lead to an improvement of the production rate.

A fiber reinforced polymer matrix composite structure includes a glass fiber layer and a carbon fiber layer in a cured resin. The glass fiber layer and the carbon fiber layer are laminated and present in a thickness direction of the structure. Two outermost layers of the fiber reinforced polymer matrix composite structure including the glass fiber layer and the carbon fiber layer are both the glass fiber layer. In the structure, a volume fraction of carbon fibers with respect to a total volume of glass fibers and carbon fibers is 0.67 or more.

A method of manufacturing a coupler for an air suspension includes: preparing a topping cord sheet and a rubber band; connecting the topping cord sheet and the rubber band to each other by attaching the rubber band to an outer circumferential surface of the topping cord sheet; and vulcanizing an intermediately formed body made by the connecting of the topping cord sheet and the rubber band to each other.

A wind-by-wind printer of three-dimensional envelopes is disclosed. A partial envelope is rotated by a turntable, a printhead is positioned proximate to a pervious fiber wind according to a three-dimensional model of the complete envelope, and unmelted fiber is dispensed and joined to the pervious wind. Several source fibers may be merged into a single build fiber toward printing. The source fiber may be modified toward printing, for example by shaping, painting or heating without melting. Several printing units may concurrently operate for adding several fiber winds to the envelope during a single revolution of the turntable.

A method of manufacturing a spiral-wound PTFE gasket includes winding a laminated PTFE tape (300) around a shaft (305) that has an outer diameter that coincides with the gasket inner diameter to create a PTFE cylinder (315) having an outer diameter that coincides with the gasket outer diameter; sintering the PTFE cylinder (315); and removing a radial segment of the PTFE cylinder (315) to form the gasket (100), the radial segment having a thickness that coincides with the gasket thickness.

A method of manufacturing a spiral-wound PTFE gasket includes winding a laminated PTFE tape (300) around a shaft (305) that has an outer diameter that coincides with the gasket inner diameter to create a PTFE cylinder (315) having an outer diameter that coincides with the gasket outer diameter; sintering the PTFE cylinder (315); and removing a radial segment of the PTFE cylinder (315) to form the gasket (100), the radial segment having a thickness that coincides with the gasket thickness.