External pressure vessels

When you want to go down deep in the waters your equipment must stay safe and dry. Windtec produces external pressure vessels that are used as housings for sensors, cameras, lights, batteries, radars or buoyancy. These are used on ROVs, AUVs, crawlers, ocean monitoring stations, ocean bottom nodes and more. The vessels are available in a range of standard sizes and configurations, but we can also develop a custom design to meet the needs for your application. By manufacturing our subsea products using the filament winding process we can offer significant advantage over metallic vessels and typically offer a weight saving of 30 – 50 %.

Why composites?

Composite materials are 30-50 % lighter than aluminium structures designed for the same functional requirements
Excellent corrosion resistance
Higher fatigue endurance.
Design flexibility. Filament winding is an additive manufacturing process.

Filament winding is a process in which continuous reinforcing fibers, either preimpregnated with resin or drawn through a bath, are wound over a rotating, removable mandrel. After winding the part is cured at higher temperatures. After curing the composite is finished and metallic flanges and other components are added by adhesive bonding and finally the vessel is coated for impact protection.

Typical depth rating for the vessels is either 3000 or 4000 meters, but special designs have been tested to more than 6000 meters.

Materials

We mainly use carbon fiber composites while for shallower water and for applications where electromagnetic transparency is required, we use glass or aramid fibers.

The flanges and lids are usually made out of Titanium Grade 5, but stainless steel or aluminum is also possible.

End options

The vessel can be configured with a lid or a dome in the ends. The lids have full diameter opening and can have several connectors. For buoyancy and applications with few connectors a dome end will be up to 50% lighter than a lid. For buoyancy, the vessel can have a dome in each end and be wound over a lightweight foam mandrel that is left inside or flushed out.