Developing a technological process to weave cotton fabrics on water jet loom

Abstract

Water jet looms are widely used in woven fabric manufacturing especially for synthetic fabric production. Due to massive growth in synthetic fabric production, the significance of the water jet loom becomes dominant Due to its salient features such as high production speed, low energy consumption, low noise emission, and simple maintenance procedures as compared to other loom counterparts. The major drawback of the water jet loom is its inability to produce cellulosic based fabric such as cotton because cotton yarns absorb considerably higher amount of water during weft insertion and as a result it does not properly insert through the warp sheet. Air jet weaving machine is ideal to produce cellulose based fabrics. However, air jet looms lacks in the above advantages possessed by water jet looms. For a sustainable development in the weaving industry and a competitive edge in weaving, it is mandatory to have minimum energy consumption when producing cellulose based fabrics. So, it is prudent to explore the possibility of weaving cellulosic based fabrics on a water jet loom. Hence, the authors attempted to develop an appropriate technological process to achieve this. A non-absorbent cotton yarn was developed and a water jet loom was modified in order to successfully produce cotton based fabrics on a water jet loom.