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CST Composites is at the forefront of global filament winding technology.

This automated process consists of wrapping resin impregnated filaments (rovings or tows) in a geometric pattern over a rotating male mandrel. The component is then cured under pressure and temperature.

The filament winding process has considerable advantages over conventional hand-laid and fabric-wrapped techniques leading to superior outcomes in strength, weight and consistency.

Contrary to one of the filament winding myths, we can wind carbon fibre tows at any angle including 0 degree longitudinals. CST have been doing this for a range of products since 1996.

Filament winding can achieve these outcomes because of:

  • Precise fibre orientations
  • Straight, uncrimped fibre paths
  • High fibre-to-resin ratios
  • High consistency and repeatability


We have the capability to wind any fibre angle from 0 degrees (uni-directionals) to 90 degrees, and the ability to bias unidirectional fibres around the periphery of a tube to gain different properties in different planes.

Composite materials offer a strong, light-weight and economically viable alternative to traditional materials resulting in a rapidly increasing number of composite applications.

Composite materials, in their most basic form, are composed of at least two elements that work together to produce mechanical properties that are superior to the properties of those elements on their own.
Carbon fibre spools

The use of Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP’s) is now commonplace in a wide variety of industries and applications. Such materials offer significant benefits compared to metals and other polymers.

At CST Composites, we incorporate only the highest quality components in our composites including carbon, aramid and glass fibres.

By carefully selecting the appropriate combination of reinforcement, resins and processing techniques, our designers and engineers create products or components that meet the most demanding of specifications. At CST we can reverse engineer from your existing component, or custom manufacture to the strength required for your application.

Advantages of composite materials

Typical benefits of composites include:

  • High Strength
  • Light Weight
  • Corrosion resistance
  • Excellent chemical resistance
  • Excellent electrical resistance
  • Dimensional stability
  • Low tooling costs
  • Design flexibility
  • Excellent fatigue resistance
  • Reduced maintenance and longer lifespan


In particular, carbon fibre reinforced composites offer exceptional stiffness and strength properties compared to common metals.

Typical weight vs. stiffness comparison between materials
Benefits of carbon fibre over metals include:

  • Twice the stiffness of aluminium
  • Five times the strength of aluminium
  • Five times lighter than steel


A carbon fibre tube with equivalent stiffness to an aluminium counterpart will weigh around half as much and will still be considerably stronger. Carbon composites are replacing aluminium and steel in a large number of sporting, high-tech and industrial applications.

Most of CST composites tubing is produced by filament winding. This involves an automated process of wrapping resin impregnated filaments (rovings or tows) in a geometric pattern over a rotating male mandrel. The component is then cured under high pressure and temperature.

At CST Composites we take pride in designing and manufacturing machinery in-house, giving us unique capabilities that commercial winding equipment cannot match.

We have a range of mandrels available to produce a range of “standard” and “custom” tubing, for more information on these ranges contact us.

Filament Winding Advantages

The filament winding process has considerable advantages over conventional hand-laid and fabric-wrapped techniques which lead to superior strength, weight and consistency. Filament winding can achieve these outcomes because of:

  • Precise fibre orientations
  • High fibre-to-resin ratios
  • Straight, uncrimped fibre paths
  • High consistency and repeatability


We have the capability to wind any fibre angle from 0 degrees (uni-directionals) to 90 degrees, and the ability to bias unidirectional fibres around the periphery of a tube to gain certain properties in different planes.

With tapered shapes we can vary wall thickness and fibre angle along the length of the tube. By changing the number of winding circuits and fibre angles, we can produce any wall thickness and ranging tube strengths and stiffnesses.

These factors are predicted prior to production by our finite element analysis (FEA) models, and later verified by in-house testing. We can predict tube stiffness, thickness and weight to within a 2-3% range for weight sensitive applications.

The process of pultrusion involves pulling resin-impregnated fibres through a heated die, where the composite is formed to its final shape and cured in a continuous process. The cured profile is then automatically cut to length.

Pultrusion Advantages

The pultrusion process offers considerable advantages for the production of composite profiles:

  • Pultrusion is an extremely economical method of impregnating and curing composite profiles and offers a very cost effective solution to the customer.
  • The resin and fibre content are accurately controlled, resulting in a profile with consistent quality, weight and mechanical properties.
  • Excellent dimensional tolerance can be achieved.
  • Structural properties of the laminates can be very high since the profiles have excellent fibre alignment and high fibre volume fraction.

Pultrusion Applications

Pultrusion lends itself to high volume applications since the process is continuous and requires long runs to be cost effective. Die costs can be quite high, and thus, total production volume must be suitably long so these costs are adequately amortised.
Please contact us for further information about our standard range and custom profiles that can be offered.

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