All machines Machines Air Jet Weaving Machines
Textile and Bedding Automation
Air Jet Weaving Machines
0:56 An air jet loom running at 2,015 rpm. Filmed and published by Picanol. Plays from YouTube, nothing here is re-hosted.
What it does
A weaving machine interlaces two sets of yarn at right angles to make cloth. The warp runs the length of the fabric and is held under tension across the machine. The weft has to be shot across that warp, one pick at a time, thousands of times a minute. On an air jet machine, the weft is fired across on a pulse of compressed air with nothing solid crossing the fabric at all.
How it works
The warp yarns are lifted and lowered in a programmed sequence by heald frames or a jacquard head, opening a wedge-shaped gap called the shed. A main nozzle accelerates the weft yarn into that gap, and a series of relay nozzles down the reed re-accelerate it so it keeps its speed all the way across. A profiled reed forms a channel that keeps the air stream focused on the yarn rather than letting it spread. As soon as the pick lands, the reed beats it up against the fabric already woven, the shed changes, and it happens again. Because there is no shuttle and no rapier, the moving mass is essentially just the yarn, which is why the speed is possible.
The numbers
Production air jet looms are commonly run in the 800 to 1,500 picks per minute band depending on width, yarn and fabric, and narrow machines go higher: the opening film here shows a Picanol OMNIplus Summum at 2,015 rpm, which is a demonstration speed on a narrow width rather than an everyday production setting. Weft insertion rate, which is picks per minute multiplied by fabric width, is the number that actually compares two machines. Air consumption is the main running cost and is the number every mill manager watches.
Who uses one
Apparel and home textile mills, mattress ticking producers, technical and industrial fabric weavers, and airbag and filtration fabric plants.
More textile and bedding automation
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6:02 Textile and Bedding AutomationAn automatic sectional warper winding a beam
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3:34 Textile and Bedding AutomationA 16-head mattress quilter at speed
The V16 uses sixteen fixed needles in a tight arrangement that shortens the thread path dramatically, letting it sew far faster than a conventional mattress quilter. Speed in quilting is limited by thread management more than by motors. This is the machine that made that clear to the industry.
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3:07 Textile and Bedding AutomationA coiler making Bonnell mattress springs
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