AUTOMATION IN WEAVING

Introduction

Weaving is best described by interlacing, typically at right angles, two sets of threads to shape cloth, a
rug or else other types of woven textiles. Today of course this progression is for the most part
automated in addition to mass produced, but the quality and the charm of handmade, hand woven rugs
and clothing is immeasurable. Weaving is an important process in textile manufacturing, which
manipulates threads into a plumb interlocking outline, which forms cloth.

Automation

Automation or automatic control, is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as
machinery, processes in factories, boilers and heat treating ovens, switching in telephone networks,
steering and stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications with minimal or reduced human
intervention. Some processes have been completely automated. The biggest benefit of automation is
that it saves labor, however, it is also used to save energy and materials and to improve quality,
accuracy and precision.

Important of Automation in the Weaving Sector

Global competition ensures that only the fittest survive. Today's weaver needs to ensure that he/she is
able to manufacture and supply the finest quality of fabric, at the lowest cost, in the shortest possible
time-frame. Automation is the only option which will allow the weaver to attain this objective.

Automation in Weaving process.

Figure 1
The six production steps winding, warping, sizing, weaving inspection and packing include 16 points of
automation. Of these, 12 deal with materials handling or transport. Only four applications deal with
automating the machine operations themselves. This includes automated process control on the slasher
and the weaving functions of  Automatic Pick Repair  Automated Warp breakage Locator 
Computerized Machine Control. Manual assistance is still required for beam replacement and repair of
warp breaks.  Implementation of electronic control such as computer control in automatic looms has
simplified operations as only the conditions such as yarn type and weave, width need to be input in
order for the optimum operations to be performed.

Machine requirements in Weaving Automation.

Weaving is the most widely used method of fabric production for the decoration, clothing and home
furnishing textile sectors. However, technical textiles, including wire cloth, are also produced on modern
weaving machines. Irrespective of the weft insertion method used, very high cycle and acceleration
rates are essential for weaving machines. Furthermore, weaving machines are characterized by a large
number of nonlinear motion sequences and time-critical starting times. Mechatronic solutions devised
from a combination of mechanical cams and servo drives for warp let-off and fabric take up are the
modern state of the art. More recently, harness motion and weft insertion have also been implemented
with individual electric drives in some instances.

Demands on the automation

The demands on the automation are:  Constant velocity relation between warp let-off and fabric take-
up as a function of the main drive  Constant thread tension during the process (uniform fabric quality)
 Weft insertion synchronized precisely with cycle times  Fast position-oriented supply of weft threads
corresponding to the color selection  Increase in machine cycle times  Different weft insertion
processes using a projectile, air jet, or picker  Short resetting times for lot changes  Reproducibility of
process data  Pattern data management and preparation

Benefits of automation process

To attain even faster resetting times, the mechanical cam can be replaced by a high resolution
SIMOTION cam function for harness motions.  The technology functions integrated in SIMOTION (as an
example), particularly the electronic cam, make it easy to implement the required motion control easily
and safely for the process. Furthermore, where necessary, they allow motion profiles to be modified
flexibly and with minimum effort.  Variable user interfaces enable process parameters to be quickly
adapted to the execution system. These data can be reproduced at any time and assigned according to
process technology. A lot change no longer requires you to make manual adjustments.  Tools for
commissioning, configuration and diagnostics integrated in the uniform, scalable SCOUT engineering
system reduce service and configuration times.  Drive System : The integrated automation and drives
structure is rounded off by the bus-coupled dynamic SINAMICS S120 drive system and SIMOTICS S-
1FT7/1FK7 motors.

Figure 2

Woven sample digitized artwork

With the help of computer system, we can analyze the woven sample digitized artwork instead of real
fabric. We can see image display onscreen than after making fabric. We can weave selection and sample
matching on screen.
Figure 3.

Example on Automation on Inspection

Analyzing the fabric faults by X-Ray emitter

Figure 4

When fabric passes through from fabric takeoff to fabric beam, we can analyze the fabric faults by X-Ray
emitter. We has not to see the fabric beam by naked eye ,we can find out faults by using automation
process.

Controlling one or several looms/sizing machines.

Figure 5
We can controle one or more looms/sizing machines by our PC. It can controls the system in room
instead of go to machines.

On-loom automation process

Figure shows when loom is running, we can control our PC which things as below:

Figure 6

Sketch jacquard design on image processor.

By automation process, sketch design can be we can analysed on computer screen as image processor.
Conclusion

Automation has resulted in control of machines electronically from user friendly interfaces, produce
intricate jacquard fabrics at the speed of commodity fabrics, inspect fabrics on loom, use optical and
laser detection of warp break, reduce downtime due to higher levels of automation and quick style and
warp beam change. The machine speed upto 1000 rpm is possible, 5 to 10 times faster than 20 years
ago.

Tugas :

1. Terjemahkan bacaan diatas kedalam Bahasa Indonesia.

2. Bagaimana peran mekatronika dama teknology otomasi Mesin Tekstil.
3. Kenapa Otomasi penting bagi Proses Tekstil?
4. Dari Figure 6, Jelaskan peran Komputer dalam pengaturan proses Otomasi Loom.
5. Sebutkan arti dari istilah berikut :
a. Fabric.
b. Woven.
c. Loom.