Modeling of compressed air requirement for different weft yarns on air jet weaving

Abstract

Although air-jet looms run faster than mechanical weft insertion looms such as rapier or shuttle looms, but their production cost can be higher when their air usage is not optimized. The amount of air required for weft insertion varies greatly for each yarn type and also depends on several key factors. One of these factors is the yarn’s air friendliness, which is the measure of how easy it is to project yarns across a web with an air column. In practice, the same air pressure is applied to all yarn types since determining the optimum air pressure for each yarn type is laborious and time intensive. Consequently, a considerable amount of air is wasted and the weaving efficiency of the loom is compromised, especially when weaving with air friendly yarns. A scientific approach that predicts the best pressure for main nozzle and sub nozzles for each yarn type can mitigate the waste of compressed air usage. Thus, a mathematical model that can be applied to optimize the compressed air usage is presented.