The United States of America As Represented by the United States Energy

William S Dritt

Howard L Gerth

Charles E Knight, Jr

Robert M Pardue

The present invention relates to a filament wound spherical structure comprising a plurality of filament band sets disposed about the surface of a mandrel with each band of each set formed of a continuous filament circumferentially wound about the mandrel a selected number of circuits and with each circuit of filament being wound parallel to and contiguous with an immediate previously wound circuit. Each filament band in each band set is wound at the same helix angle from the axis of revolution of the mandrel and all of the bands of each set are uniformly distributed about the mandrel circumference. The pole-to-equator wall thickness taper associated with each band set, as several contiguous band sets are wound about the mandrel starting at the poles, is accumulative as the band sets are nested to provide a complete filament wound sphere of essentially uniform thickness.

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Oak Ridge, TN, United States of America

William S Dritt