Fabric construction involves the conversion of yarns, and sometimes fibers, into a cloth having characteristics determined by the materials and methods employed. Most fabrics are presently produced by some method of interlacing, like weaving or knitting. ... Other interlaced fabrics include net, lace, and braid.
Fabric construction involves the conversion of yarns, and sometimes fibres, into a cloth having characteristics determined by the materials and methods employed. Most fabrics are presently produced by some method of interlacing, like weaving or knitting. Weaving, currently the main method of cloth production, includes the essential weaves, plain or tabby, twill, and satin, and therefore the fancy weaves, including pile, Jacquard, dobby, and gauze. Knitted fabrics are rapidly increasing in importance and include weft types and therefore the warp types, raschel and tricot. Other interlaced fabrics include net, lace, and braid. Nonwoven fabrics are gaining importance and include materials produced by felting and bonding. Laminating processes also are increasing in importance, and fairly recent developments include needle weaving and therefore the sewing-knitting process.
Woven fabrics
Woven fabrics are made from yarns interlaced during a regular order called a binding system, or weave. Weaving is that the process of mixing warp and weft components to form a woven structure. The components need neither be parallel to every other nor cross one another at right angles, but most woven structures are composed of two sets of components, both flexible and crossing at right angles. Weaving is differentiated from warp and weft knitting, braiding, and net making therein these latter processes make use of just one set of elements. additionally , there are geometrical differences, one among the foremost significant being the tiny angles through which the components of a woven structure are, generally , bent, in contrast with the components of other structures.
Weaving may be a widely used constructional method because it's cheap, basically simple, and adaptable. Woven fabrics have valuable characteristics resulting partly from the geometrical conformation of their components and partly from the very fact that the components are held in position not by rigid bonding but by friction found out at the areas where they create contact. Woven fabrics are utilized in household, apparel, and industrial textiles.
Textile designers can produce a really large sort of cloths by their selection of yarns, finishing processes, and binding systems. Yarns vary in thickness, smoothness, fibre content, twist, and colour, all of which have a profound influence on the finished cloth. Finishing processes range from such simple treatment as brushing up the nap on a woven fabric to such a sophisticated chemical change as that employed to vary opaque cotton fabric to transparent, permanently stiffened organdy.
The binding system, or weave, however, is that the basic think about determining the character of a woven fabric. The three basic systems are plain or tabby, twill, and satin. In complex binding systems, the essential weaves are combined or enriched by hand manipulation or mechanical loom attachments; these include multiple-plane, pile, inlaid, and gauze weaves. no matter the binding system, other devices—manipulation of warp spacing, beating in, or tension—can be wont to alter the looks of any weave, to form it looser or more compact, to form it more or less regular.
As notation conveys a composer’s ideas, so weave drafts or point paper plans communicate a textile designer’s directions for constructing woven fabrics. The draft may be a plan on paper showing a minimum of one repeat or weave unit of the material to be woven. This information enables the weaver or mill specialist to plot the drawing in of the warp, the traffic jam of harnesses to the shedding mechanism, and therefore the shedding order.
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The weaving process
Woven cloth is generally for much longer in one direction than the opposite . The lengthwise threads are called the warp, and therefore the other threads, which are combined with the warp and lie widthwise, are called the weft (synonyms are “filling,” “woof,” and “shoot,” or “shute”). a private thread from the warp, of indefinite length, is named an end; each individual length of weft, extending from one fringe of the material to the opposite , is named a pick, or shot. Consecutive picks are usually consecutive lengths of 1 piece of weft yarn that's repeatedly folded back on itself.
Image credit.. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Textile designers can produce a really large sort of cloths by their selection of yarns, finishing processes, and binding systems. Yarns vary in thickness, smoothness, fibre content, twist, and colour, all of which have a profound influence on the finished cloth. Finishing processes range from such simple treatment as brushing up the nap on a woven fabric to such a sophisticated chemical change as that employed to vary opaque cotton fabric to transparent, permanently stiffened organdy.
The binding system, or weave, however, is that the basic think about determining the character of a woven fabric. The three basic systems are plain or tabby, twill, and satin. In complex binding systems, the essential weaves are combined or enriched by hand manipulation or mechanical loom attachments; these include multiple-plane, pile, inlaid, and gauze weaves. no matter the binding system, other devices—manipulation of warp spacing, beating in, or tension—can be wont to alter the looks of any weave, to form it looser or more compact, to form it more or less regular.
In all methods of weaving cloth (except the rudimentary sort of darning), before a length of weft is inserted within the warp, the warp is separated, over a brief length extending from the material already formed, into two sheets. the method is named shedding and therefore the space between the sheets the shed. A pick of weft is then laid between the 2 sheets of warp, within the operation referred to as picking. a replacement shed is then formed in accordance with the specified weave structure, with some or all of the ends in each sheet moving over to the position previously occupied by the opposite sheet. during this way the weft is clasped between two layers of warp.
Since it's impossible to get the weft on the brink of the junction of the warp and therefore the cloth already woven, an extra operation called beating in, or beating up, is important to push the pick to the specified distance faraway from the last one inserted previously. Although beating in usually takes place while the shed is changing, it's normally completed before the new shed is fully formed.
The sequence of primary operations in one weaving cycle is thus shedding, picking, and beating in. At the top of the cycle the geometrical relation of the pick to the warp is that the same because it would are if the pick had been threaded through the spaces between alternate ends, first from one side of the material then from the opposite , as in darning. this is often the rationale the weaving process is taken into account an interlacing method.
Early development of the loom
The word loom (from Middle English lome, “tool”) is applied to any set of devices permitting a warp to be tensioned and a shed to be formed. Looms exist in great variety, from the bundles of cords and rods of primitive peoples to enormous machines of steel and forged iron .
Except on certain experimental looms, the warp shed is made with the help of heddles (or healds). Usually one heddle is provided for every end, or multiple end, of warp thread, but on some primitive looms simple cloths are produced with heddles provided just for each alternate end. A heddle consists of a brief length of cord, wire, or flat steel strip, supported (in its operative position) roughly perpendicular to the unseparated sheet of warp threads and provided, in modern looms, with an eyelet at its midpoint, through which the warp end is threaded. By pulling one end of the heddle or the opposite , the warp end are often deflected to at least one side or the opposite of the most sheet of ends. The frame holding the heddles is named a harness.
Image: Courtesy of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, England
In most looms, the weft is supplied from a shuttle, a hollow projectile inside which a weft package is mounted in such how that the weft are often freely unwound through an eyelet leading from the within to the surface . The shuttle enters the shed and traverses the warp, leaving a trail of weft behind.
Beating in is usually effected by means of a grating of uniformly spaced fine parallel wires, originally made from natural reeds and thus called a reed, which, mounted at right angles to the warp, oscillates between the heddles and therefore the refore the junction of the warp and the cloth. The ends pass, one or more at a time, through the spaces between consecutive reed wires, in order that the reed, additionally to beating in, controls the spacing of the ends within the cloth.
Two-bar
The earliest evidence of the utilization of the loom (4400 BCE) may be a representation of a horizontal two-bar (or two-beamed—i.e., warp beam and cloth beam) loom pictured on a pottery dish found at Al-Badārī, Egypt. The warp is stretched between two bars or beams, pegged to the bottom at each of the four corners. Lease (or laze) rods are wont to separate the warp yarns, forming a shed and aiding the hands keep the yarns separated and so as . Lease rods were found in some form on every later sort of improved loom, and their use at this very early date indicates that the loom already had been in use long enough to possess reached a stage of improvement by addition of devices to assist the hands.
Before lease rods were added, it might are necessary for the fingers to separate each odd from each even warp thread to make the shed through which the weft yarn was passed. a 3rd rod also seen during this early drawing could also be a heddle rod. If so, this loom represents a still more advanced stage of development.
The heddle rod rests on top of the warps. to supply a clear weave, alternate warp yarns are tied to the rod, and, when it's raised, the shed is made quickly and accurately. Some authorities consider the heddle to be the foremost important step within the evolution of the loom. A shed stick is ordinarily used with the heddle, forming the second, or countershed, opening for the return of the weft.
In addition to the horizontal two-bar loom, there are two other primitive varieties: the warp-weighted and therefore the vertical two-bar loom. The warp-weighted loom consists of a crossbar supported by two vertical posts. The warp threads hang from the crossbar and are held taut by weights of clay, ceramic, or chalk tied to their free ends. Loom weights are found at archaeological sites dating from 3000 BCE, but this sort of loom may have originated even earlier. The earliest picture of a vertical two-bar loom is from the Egyptian 18th dynasty (1567–1320 BCE). It coincides with the looks of more intricate textile patterns, the earliest known tapestries (datable between 1483 and 1411 BCE) having been found within the tomb of Thutmose IV at Thebes. (Even today the vertical loom is preferred for tapestry weaving.) within the vertical two-bar loom the ends of the warp yarns are attached to a second crossbar, thus combining features of both the horizontal two-bar and therefore the warp-weighted looms.
The heddle rods and shed sticks are utilized in an identical way on all three types.
Counterparts of those very early looms are used through the ages in many cultures. The Navajo Indians, probably the simplest known of the American Indian weavers, have used the straightforward two-bar vertical loom for several centuries to supply their beautiful rugs and blankets. A sort of the horizontal two-bar loom was the back-strap loom, during which one bar was tied to a tree or other stationary device, the second being attached to the weaver’s waist by a strap. The weaver could control the strain of the warp yarns by applying pressure as necessary. The back-strap loom was utilized in pre-Columbian Peru, in other cultures of Central and South America, in Asia, et al. .
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Horizontal frame looms
By about 2500 BCE a more advanced loom was apparently evolving in East Asia. Fragments of silk fabrics found adhering to bronzes of the Shang (or Yin) period (18th–12th centuries) in China show traces of a twill damask pattern, suggesting a complicated weaving knowledge, since such fabrics couldn't practicably be woven on the looms described above. These fabrics were probably produced on a horizontal frame loom with treadles. The logical connecting link between the horizontal two-bar and therefore the horizontal frame loom with treadles would are a loom with a heddle rod that was controlled by one foot, that no early illustrations are found.
The earliest European pictorial record of the horizontal frame loom with a treadle dates from the 13th century, when it appears during a highly developed form, almost certainly introduced from the East. This two-bar loom was mounted during a frame; to the present was connected a treadle operated by the feet, moving the heddles, an improvement of the heddle rod or cord controls now mounted between bars and called a shaft. the benefits of this sort of loom were many. First, within the two-bar loom, though quite two heddle rods might be used, the amount of groupings of warp threads was limited. Although highly complex patterns might be woven, it had been not practical to try to to so in producing any but very small quantities of fabric . The shaft loom allowed as many as 24 shafts to be found out easily, enabling the weaver to supply comparatively intricate patterns. Second, the weaver’s sword or comb formerly wont to beat the weft into place was replaced by the batten, supported during a heavy wooden frame from the most frame of the loom; its weight and free-swinging motion improved the beating-in action and made it easier. Third, use of the foot treadle freed both hands to throw the shuttle and swing the batten. The loom remained virtually unchanged for several centuries thereafter.
Drawlooms
The shaft loom was adequate for plain and for simply patterned fabrics, but a more complex loom was needed for the weaving of intricately figured fabrics, which could require 100 or more shafts. this type of weaving was accomplished on the drawloom. Its origin is unknown, but it probably was first utilized in East Asia for silk weaving and was introduced into the silk-working centres of Italy during the center Ages. The drawloom had two devices for shedding: additionally to the shafts, which the weaver operated by treadles, cords were also wont to raise the warp threads, gathered into groups as needed by the pattern. The cords were worked by an operator (called a drawboy) seated on top of the loom.
The drawloom was improved in Italy and France within the early 17th century by the addition of a kind of mechanical drawboy, allowing the assistant to face on the ground at the side of the loom and increasing the control of the cords. The continued inconvenience of employing an assistant, however, who may additionally make errors, led to an enquiry for an automatic mechanism that might perform all the work of the drawboy. Most of the later developments in automatic mechanisms to regulate the shedding operation originated in France, which had become one among the leading countries within the weaving of figured silks.
In 1725 Basile Bouchon added to the mechanical drawboy a mechanism that selected the cords to be drawn to make the pattern. Selection was controlled by a roll of paper, perforated consistent with the pattern, which passed around a cylinder. The cylinder was pushed toward the choosing box and met with needles carrying the warp-controlling cords; the needles that met unperforated paper slid along, and therefore the others skilled the holes and remained stationary. the chosen cords were drawn down by a foot-operated treadle.
The mechanical drawboy made the right selection of warp threads, eliminating errors, but still required an operator. The mechanism was improved in 1728 by increasing the amount of needles and employing a rectangular perforated card for every individual shedding motion, the cards being strung together in an endless chain. In 1745 Jacques de Vaucanson constructed a loom incorporating variety of improvements. He mounted the choosing box above the loom, where it acted directly on hooks fastened to the cords that controlled the warp yarns. The hooks skilled needles and were raised by a robust ingot . The needles were selected by perforated cards passing around a sliding cylinder, without the help of a second operator or assistant. The cylinder was very complex, and therefore the mechanism isn't known to possess been adopted, but it served because the foundation for the successful Jacquard attachment.
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The Jacquard attachment
The French inventor Joseph-Marie Jacquard, commissioned to overhaul Vaucanson’s loom, did so without the directions, which were missing. In 1801, at the Paris Industrial Exhibition, he demonstrated an improved drawloom. In 1804–05 he introduced the invention that ever since has caused the loom to which it's attached to be called the Jacquard loom .
Image Credit: The Bettmann Archive
The Jacquard attachment is an automatic selective shedding device, that's mounted on top of the loom and operated by a treadle controlled by the weaver. As within the drawloom, every warp yarn runs through a loop during a controlling cord, held taut by a weight. Each cord is suspended from a wire (“hook”) that's bent at rock bottom to carry the cord and bent at the highest so as to hook round the blades or bars of the griff, the lifting mechanism. to permit only those warp threads that are needed to make the pattern to be raised, some hooks must be dislodged from the rising griff. this is often accomplished by horizontally placed needles connected to the hooks. because the perforated pattern card moves into place on the cylinder (which is, in fact, a quadrangular block), the needles undergo the holes within the card, and therefore the warps are raised; where there are not any holes, the needles are pushed back (by a spring action on the other end of each), pulling the hooks faraway from the rising griff bar, and therefore the warps aren't raised.
Each card represents one throw of the shuttle, and therefore the pattern is transferred to the cards from the designer’s weave draft. Although each Jacquard attachment is restricted within the number of hooks it can control and, therefore, within the size of the repeat pattern, several Jacquard attachments are often added to at least one loom in order that the weaver not only can produce intricately figured fabrics but can also weave pictures of considerable size.
The flying shuttle
The first decisive step toward automation of the loom was the invention of the flying shuttle, patented in 1733 by the Englishman John Kay. Kay was a weaver of broadloom fabrics, which, due to their width, required two weavers to take a seat side by side, one throwing the shuttle from the proper to the centre and therefore the other reaching between the warps and sending it on its thanks to the left then returning it to the centre. The stopping of the shuttle and therefore the reaching between the warps caused imperfections within the cloth. Kay devised a mechanical attachment controlled by a cord jerked by the weaver that sent the shuttle flying through the shed. Jerking the cord within the other way sent the shuttle on its return trip. Using the flying shuttle, one weaver could weave fabrics of any width more quickly than two could before. A more important virtue of Kay’s invention, however, lay in its adaptability to automatic weaving.
Power-driven looms
The first power-driven machine for weaving fabric-width goods, patented in 1785 by Cartwright , an English clergyman, was inadequate because it considered only three motions: shedding, picking, and winding the woven cloth onto the material beam. Cartwright’s second patent (1786) proved too ambitious, but his concept of a weaving machine became the idea for the successful loom .
One of the good obstacles to the success of the facility loom was the need to prevent the loom frequently so as to decorate (i.e., apply sizing to) the warp, an operation that, like many others, had been wiped out proportionately reasonable time when the weaving was done by hand. With the facility loom a second man had to be used continuously to try to to this work, so there was no saving of expense or time. within the early 19th century a dressing machine was developed that prepared the warp after it had been wound onto the warp beam and because it was passed to the material beam. Although later superseded by an improved sizing apparatus, this device made the facility loom a practical tool.
Advances made by William Horrocks of Scotland between 1803 and 1813 included an improvement within the method of taking over the material (i.e., winding the woven fabric onto the material beam) and making a more compact machine of iron, requiring little space as compared with wooden handlooms.
Francis Cabot Lowell, of Boston, experimented with the facility loom, adding improvements to extend the weaving speed, and also improved the dressing machine.
A valuable improvement was that of the let-off and take-up motions, to take care of uniform warp tension automatically. The principle of holding at the beat (i.e., not permitting the warp to be excuse until the pick was beaten into place), first applied by Erastus Brigham Bigelow within the loom , was successfully applied to all or any sorts of weaving. Another Bigelow invention, applicable to power looms generally although first used on a loom , was the friction-brake stop mechanism, allowing the loom to be stopped without a shock.
These developments were primarily concerned with the facility loom used for weaving plain goods. William Crompton, an English machinist working within the workshop attached to a cotton factory in Massachusetts, undertook the event of a loom that would weave commodity , patented in both the us and England in 1837. The loom was later much improved by his son George Crompton. Such 19th-century inventions made possible the assembly of textile goods for each use in great volume and variety and at low cost.
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Modern looms
Modern looms still weave by repeating in sequence the operations of shedding, picking, and beating in, but within that framework there has been considerable development during the 20th century. Several new sorts of loom have inherit industrial use, whereas older types are refined and their scope extended. Two main influences are the rising cost of labour and therefore the increasing use of synthetic continuous-filament yarns. the primary has led to a rise in automatic control, in automatic handling of yarn packages, and within the use of larger packages; the second, to greater precision and finish in loom construction, because deficiency within the se qualities is quickly reflected in the quality of the material made up of these yarns.
Modern looms are often grouped into two classes consistent with whether or not they produce cloth in plane or tubular form. Looms of the primary kind, comprising about a couple of , are called flat looms; the others are described as circular. Since the bulk are flat looms, the adjective is employed only a distinction has got to be drawn. Flat looms fall under two categories: people who employ a shuttle and people that draw the weft from a stationary supply, usually called shuttleless looms. (This term isn't entirely satisfactory, as some primitive looms make no use of a shuttle, merely passing through the shed a persist with weft wound thereon .) Shuttle looms fall under two groups consistent with whether the shuttle is replenished by hand or automatically. The second kind is usually described as an automatic loom, but, apart from shuttle replenishment, it's no more automatic in its operation than the hand-replenished or so-called nonautomatic loom, which, like all modern looms, is power-operated by motor . With both sorts of loom the particular weaving operation is entirely automatic and is performed in just an equivalent manner.
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Hand-replenished, or nonautomatic, looms are used only where particular circumstances—of yarns, fabrics, or use—make automatically replenished looms either technically unsuitable or uneconomic. Basically, they differ little from the facility looms of the latter half the 19th century. they are doing not run appreciably faster but are better engineered, making use, for instance , of machine-cut rather than cast gear wheels. Often there's no superstructure, which makes for cleanliness and improved illumination; frequently rigid heddle connectors are employed, resulting in precise and stable setting of the shed; and typically the overpick mechanism has been replaced by the cleaner and safer underpick.
Automatically replenished flat, or automatic, looms are the foremost important class of recent loom, available for a really wide selection of materials . In virtually all such looms, the shuttle is replenished by automatically replacing the exhausted bobbin with a full one. in theory they're thus an equivalent because the automatic looms introduced at the top of the 19th century. Since that point , automatic shuttle-changing looms have also been introduced but have largely become obsolete, because bobbin-changing looms are developed to some extent where they will affect most of the yarns that it had been once thought necessary to use shuttle-changing looms.
Apart from the overall engineering refinements, automatic looms have advanced mainly in respect of the weft supply. Alternatives to the hand-replenished bobbin now exist within the sort of the automated bobbin loader, the loom being furnished with boxes of pirned (reeled) weft; and therefore the automatic loom winder, the loom being fed with large cones of yarn, which is wound onto pirns at the loom. These alternatives are technically feasible and economic only with certain yarns. Therefore, all three sorts of weft supply still be used. an alternate to the rotary battery, when weft of quite one colour is employed , may be a series of vertical stacks.
The principle of shuttle replenishment is that the same for all three systems. When the shuttle is stationary within the shuttle box, and therefore the bar carrying the reed is farthest forward, a feeler enters the shuttle and senses whether the weft is on the purpose of exhaustion. Feelers could also be mechanical or electrical, relying respectively on the change in friction or the change in electric resistance caused by the absence of weft. Alternatively, with delicate wefts, an optical feeler could also be used that depends for its action on the change within the amount of sunshine reflected when the bare pirn is revealed.
When the feeler has sensed that the bobbin is almost empty, mechanical or electrical signals are transmitted to the transfer mechanism that, when the shuttle is appropriately positioned and momentarily at rest, both as regards warp-way and weft-way motion, hammers a replacement bobbin into position, simultaneously ejecting the empty one through the open base of the shuttle. The loom continues to run at its normal speed throughout.
In the course of this operation, there are created unwanted lengths of weft extending from the nearer selvage. These, if not controlled and disposed of, may find their way into the material and appear as defects. Modern looms supplement the sooner mechanical methods by pneumatic suction, with the result that the foremost delicate fabrics are often woven on automatic bobbin-changing looms with none loss of quality. to form certain of removal of the remnant of weft on the old bobbin, extending to the attention of the shuttle, a cutter moves forward into the shuttle box and cuts the weft on the brink of the attention just before the bobbin is ejected.
High speed, often combined with the utilization of huge and heavy shuttles, means these modern looms are noisier than ever. The background level during a typical factory is above the extent at which deafness occurs following prolonged exposure.
Shuttleless looms are of three kinds, of which the primary predominates: dummy shuttle, rapier, and fluid jet. The dummy-shuttle type, the foremost successful of the shuttleless looms, makes use of a dummy shuttle, a projectile that contains no weft but that passes through the shed within the manner of a shuttle and leaves a trail of yarn behind it.
The rapier type conveys a pick of weft from a stationary package through the shed by means of either one rapier or a pair of rapiers. Rapiers are either rigid rods or flexible steel tapes, which are straight when within the shed but on withdrawal are wound onto a wheel, so as to save lots of floor space. Rapier looms are, on the entire , simpler and more versatile than dummy-shuttle looms, but they need did not achieve such high rates of weft insertion, the utmost being less than 400 yards (365 metres) per minute. They differ in respect of the amount of rapiers employed and therefore the sort of selvage provided; a number of them operate by gripping the free end of the weft and conveying that through the shed instead of by starting with a loop. Fluid-jet looms, last developed of the shuttleless types, are produced and used on a way smaller scale than the 2 other types described above. they're of two kinds, one employing a jet of air, the opposite a water jet, to propel a measured length of weft through the shed. the importance of this development is that for the primary time nothing solid is passed into the shed aside from the weft, which eliminates the difficulties normally related to checking and warp protection and reduces the noise to a suitable level.
In addition to those looms that have established themselves industrially, there are looms still within the experimental stage. Loom development is usually slow: a number of the looms just gaining favour had their origins in inventions made 50 or maybe 100 years earlier. the foremost intense activity is within the field of shuttleless looms, because these offer the best prospect of achieving increased rates of weft insertion and of avoiding the drawbacks of noise, danger, vibration, high power consumption, and wear attendant on the utilization of a shuttle. the last word in direct projection may be a method, still experimental, during which the weft is projected longitudinally at high speed and traverses the warp under its own momentum, nothing entering the shed but the pick of weft. The name inertial has been given to the present method. Another experimental loom employs multiple rapiers for weft insertion and, additionally , eliminates the heddles and therefore the reed.
Basic weaves
The basic weaves include plain (or tabby), twills, and satins.
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Plain weave
Plain, or tabby, weave, the only and commonest of all weaves, requires only two harnessses and has two warp and weft yarns in each weave unit. to supply it, the warp yarns are held parallel under tension while a crosswise weft yarn is shot over and under alternate warps across the width of the online . The weave unit is completed at the top of the second row, when the weft has been inserted over and under the other set of warps, thus locking the previous weft in situ . Fabric length is increased with the insertion of every succeeding weft yarn. When warp and weft yarns are approximately equal in size and quantity, the finished fabric is balanced and potentially stronger than cloth made from an equivalent kind and number of warp and weft yarns in the other basic weave. Tabby woven with different-sized warp and weft yarns leads to such fabrics as taffeta and poplin, during which many fine warps are interlaced with proportionately fewer thick weft yarns to make cloths with crosswise ridges or ribs.
The term extended tabby describes any weave during which two or more warps or wefts, or both, are interlaced as a unit. The group includes fabrics with basketry effects and fabrics with ribs formed by groups of warps or wefts in each shed.
Twills are often varied by changing the relative number of warps and wefts in each repeat (2:1, 2:3, 3:1, 6:2, etc.); by stepping the repeat in one direction; by breaking the direction of the diagonals formed by the twill at regular intervals; by reversing the direction of the diagonal at regular intervals to make chevrons or lozenges; or by combining several twills or modifying them to make a pattern.
Twills drape better than plain weaves with an equivalent yarn count because twills have fewer interlacings. Twill weaves are used throughout history in many weights and textures, from wool serges mentioned in medieval French manuscripts to English diapered (diamond patterned) table linens, patterned bed coverlets, and Indian shawls.
Satin weave
Although satin-weave drafts superficially resemble those of twills, weave doesn't have the regular step in each successive weft that's characteristic of twills. Thus, there's no strong diagonal line, and therefore the fabric is smooth faced, with an unbroken surface made from long floating warp yarns. a real satin must have a minimum of five warp and weft yarns in each complete weave repeat and thus requires a minimum of five harnesses. Most satin fabrics are made from smooth, lightly twisted yarns that heighten the effect of sunshine unbroken by visible crosswise bindings. The limited number of interlacings allows the weaver to use a proportionately sizable amount of warp yarns and thus produce an important textured cloth which will be arranged in smooth, shadowed folds. Satins, having long floats, are vulnerable to the wear and tear caused by rubbing and snagging and are, therefore, generally considered luxury fabrics.
Among the variations of weave are damask and sateen, a weft-faced satin. Damask is that the most vital variation of basic weave . Classic damask may be a patterned solid-coloured fabric with figures in warp-faced satin and background in weft-faced weave . The pattern is made by the difference in light reflection between the warp-faced and weft-faced areas. Silk damasks probably originated in China and came to Europe through Italy, the centre of European silk manufacture between the 13th and 17th centuries. During this era drawloom weavers from Netherlands and Belgium also developed the art of linen damask weaving. Pictorial linen damasks, unlike most silk damasks of the time, often consisted of one large repeat, picturing biblical scenes, contemporary events, or the arms of nobles and kings.
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Complex weaves
Complex weaves include multiple plane, pile, inlaid, Jacquard, dobby, and gauze (or leno) weaves.
Multiple taffeta weave
Reversible double-woven cloth is produced by multiple plain weaving. it's woven in two layers, which can be completely independent, could also be joined at one or both selvages, could also be held together along the sides of a pattern, or could also be united by a separate binding weft. Though often tabby weave is used on both surfaces, any of the essential weaves could also be used, counting on the intended use of the material .
Double-woven cloths are used for clothing, but, though warm, they have a tendency to be heavy and to drape poorly. they're most frequently used as bedcovers or wall hangings. German 18th-century Beiderwand is an example of antique double-woven cloth consisting of two layers of tabby weave joined only along the sides of the pattern. A dark-coloured pattern in one layer is about against the light-coloured ground of the opposite layer; the pattern is seen in negative or the reverse side of the material .
Nonreversible cloth with two or more sets of warp and sometimes of weft also can be produced. These cloths have an intricately patterned face, and every one warps and wefts that don't appear on the face are carried along and bound into the online on the reverse side. This class includes important historic textiles, like early Persian and Byzantine figured fabrics, also as newer Jacquard-woven imitation tapestries and a good range of imitation brocaded fabrics.
Pile weave
Pile weaves have a ground fabric plus an additional set of yarns woven or tied into the bottom and projecting from it as cut ends or loops. an excellent range of textures is included during this binding system, from terry pile toweling and corduroy to silk velvets and Oriental rugs.
In warp-pile fabrics the pile is made by an additional set of warp yarns. to make such a cloth , first one set (sheet) of ground warps is raised, and therefore the weft makes its first interlacing with the bottom warp. Next, pile warps are raised, and a rod is inserted through the whole width of the online . The remaining ground warps are raised to make the third shed; then the bottom weft is shot across again. This sequence is repeated several times; then the rods are slipped out, leaving a warp pile. to make cut-pile velvet, a knife on the top of the rod cuts the pile warps it passes, creating two fine rows of cut pile. Although the system has many technical variations, an equivalent basic process are often applied to most warp-pile weaving.
If the pile isn't cut when the rod is removed, a loop pile fabric results. In weaving terry pile fabrics, the bottom warp is under tension, and therefore the pile warp stays slack. When wefts are beaten in, the slack yarns are pushed into loops on each side of the material .
To make velvets by double-cloth construction, two layers of fabric are woven simultaneously face-to-face, with long pile warp yarns connecting the 2 layers. After the material is woven, a knife slices the 2 layers apart.
Corduroy and velveteen are weft-pile constructions. Weft yarns having long floats are inserted between ground-weave picks. The floats are slit longitudinally after the material is completed, thus forming a ribbed surface of cut pile. In manufacture of velveteen the floats are formed over the entire surface of the material and cut evenly to imitate velvet.
Hand-knotted Oriental and Scandinavian rugs are constructed on a tabby-weave ground, with each row of knots followed by tightly beaten-in wefts. The pile of fine Oriental rugs may contain 160 knots per inch, thus completely obscuring the knots within the rug’s foundation.
Inlaid weave
In all of the fabrics of this class, designs are created by inserting pattern warp or weft yarns between ground warps or wefts.
Brocaded fabric features a pattern of colored or metallic threads, or both, set in bas relief against the bottom weave. the bottom weave are often any basic weave, since the brocaded pattern is simply inserted between ground wefts and is bound by ground warps. Until the arrival of the Jacquard mechanism within the early 19th century, brocaded fabrics were woven by drawloom weavers who inserted the pattern wefts by hand. These weft yarns were wound on small brocading shuttles that travelled across the width of every pattern repeat, a separate shuttle getting used for every color the repeat. Generally, these extra wefts were found only within the area during which the pattern was located and typically formed long floats on the reverse side of the material .
A mechanical process closely like hand brocading is named swivel, a system of figuring fabrics by using mechanically controlled pattern shuttles. The figures, inserted between ground-weft picks, interlace with the warp. The lappet system produces figured fabrics resembling those made by swivel figuring, but the pattern yarns are extra warps (rather than wefts) brought into play from separate warp beams. Lappet weaving is usually confined to coarse pattern yarns and may be distinguished from swivel by its interlacing with weft instead of with warp yarns.
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Jacquard weave
The Jacquard weave, wont to make allover figured fabrics like brocades, tapestries, and damasks, is woven on a loom having a Jacquard attachment to regulate individual warps. Fabrics of this sort are costly due to the time and skill involved in making the Jacquard cards, preparing the loom to supply a replacement pattern, and therefore the slowness of the weaving operation. The Jacquard weave usually combines two or more basic weaves, with different weaves used for the planning and therefore the background.
Dobby weaves
Dobby weaves also produce allover figured fabrics. they're made on looms having a dobby attachment, with narrow strips of wood rather than Jacquard cards. Dobby weaves are limited to simple, small geometric figures, with the planning repeated frequently, and are fairly inexpensive to supply .
Gauze or leno weave
Gauze weaving is an weave made by twisting adjacent warps together. it's usually made by the leno, or doup, weaving process, during which a doup attachment, a skinny hairpin-like needle attached to 2 healds, is used, and therefore the adjacent warp yarns cross one another between picks. Since the crossed warps firmly lock each weft in situ , gauze weaves are often used for sheer fabrics made from smooth fine yarns. Although gauze weaving, with its multitude of variations, has been adapted to modern production, it's an ancient technique.
Knitted fabrics
Knitted fabrics are constructed by interlocking a series of loops made up of one or more yarns, with each row of loops caught into the preceding row. Loops running lengthwise are called wales, and people running crosswise are courses. Hand knitting probably originated among the nomads of the Arabian Desert about 1000 BCE and spread from Egypt to Spain, France, and Italy. Knitting guilds were established in Paris and Florence by the later Middle Ages. Austria and Germany produced heavily cabled and knotted fabrics, embroidered with brightly coloured patterns. within the Netherlands, naturalistic patterns were worked on fabric in reverse stocking stitch, and a number of other Dutch knitters visited Denmark to show Danish women the Dutch skills. The craft of hand knitting became smaller with the invention of a frame textile machine in 1589, although the assembly of yarns for hand knitting has remained a crucial branch of the textile industry to this day.
The frame textile machine allowed production of an entire row of loops at just one occasion . the fashionable knitting industry, with its highly sophisticated machinery, has grown from this easy device.
Knitted fabrics were formerly described in terms of the amount of courses and wales per unit length and therefore the weight of the material per unit area. this technique is restricted , however, and there's a shift to use of the size and configuration of the only loop, the repeating unit determining such fabric characteristics as area, knitting quality, and weight. The length of yarn knitted into a loop or stitch is termed the stitch length, and during a plain knitted structure this is often associated with the courses per inch, wales per inch, and stitch density. the 2 basic equilibrium states for knitted fabrics are the dry-relaxed state, attained by allowing the material to relax freely within the air, and therefore the wet-relaxed state, reached after static relaxation of the material in water followed by drying.
Knitting machines
The needle is that the basic element of all knitting machines. the 2 main needle types are the “bearded” spring needle, invented about 1589, and therefore the more common latch needle, invented in 1847.
The bearded needle, made up of thin wire, has one end bent, forming an operating handle; the opposite end is drawn out and bent over, forming an extended flexible tipped hook resembling a beard. A smooth groove, or eye, is cut within the stem or shank of the needle just behind the tip. In use this needle requires two other units, a sinker to make a loop and a presser to shut the needle beard, allowing the loop to skip the beard when a replacement stitch is made . Bearded needles are often made up of very fine wire and are wont to produce fine fabrics.
The latch needle consists of a curved hook, a latch, or tumbler, that swings on a rivet slightly below the hook, and therefore the stem, or butt. it's sometimes called the self-acting needle because no presser is needed; the hook is closed by the pressure of a completed loop on the latch because it rises on the shaft. Needles differ greatly in thickness, in gauge, and long , and appropriate types must be selected for specific purposes. A 4-gauge needle, for instance , is employed for heavy sweaters, but an 80-gauge needle is required for fine hosiery.
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Weft knitting
The type of stitch utilized in weft knitting affects both the looks and properties of the knit . the essential stitches are plain, or jersey; rib; and purl. within the knit , each loop is drawn through others to an equivalent side of the material . within the rib stitch, loops of an equivalent course are drawn to each side of the material . the online is made by two sets of needles, arranged opposite to every other and fed by an equivalent thread, with each needle in one circle taking over an edge between its counterparts within the other. during a 2:2 rib, two needles on one set alternate with two of the opposite . The interlock structure may be a variant of the rib form during which two threads are alternately knitted by the other needles in order that interlocking occurs. within the purl stitch, loops are drawn to opposite sides of the material , which, on each side , has the looks of the rear of a clear stitch fabric. Jacquard mechanisms are often attached to knitting machines, in order that individual needles are often controlled for each course or for every two, and sophisticated patterns are often knitted. to make a tuck stitch, a completed loop isn't discharged from a number of the needles in each course, and loops accumulating on these needles are later discharged together. The plaited stitch is formed by feeding two threads into an equivalent hook, in order that one thread shows on the one side of the material and therefore the other on the other side. A float stitch is produced by missing interlooping over a series of needles in order that the thread floats over a couple of loops in each course.
Knitting machines are often flat or circular. Flat machines have their needles mounted during a flat plate or needle bed or in two beds at right angles to every other and every at a 45° angle to the horizontal. The knit passes downward through the space between the upper edges of the plates, called the throat. within the knitting process, the needles are pushed up and down by cams attached to a carriage with a yarn guide, which moves over the length of the machine. The width of the material are often altered by increasing or decreasing the amount of active needles, allowing production of shaped fabrics, which when sewn together make full-fashioned garments. Although flatbed machines are fitted to hand operation, they're power driven in commercial use, and, selectively of colour, sort of stitch, cam design, and Jacquard device, almost unlimited variety is feasible . The cotton frame, designed to knit fine, full-fashioned goods, shaped for improved fit of such items as hosiery and sweaters, is fitted with automatic narrowing and widening devices.
Circular machine needles are carried in grooves cut within the wall of a cylinder, which can be as small as 1 cm (0.4 inch) in diameter and as large as 1.5 metres (5 feet). Some circular machines have two sets of needles, carried in concentric cylinders, in order that the needles interlock. During the knitting operation the butts of the needles move through cam tracks, the needles sliding up and right down to devour yarn, form a replacement loop, and remove the previously formed loop. within the least complicated of those machines, yarn is supplied from one package, each needle learning the yarn once per revolution of the cylinder. Modern machines may have as many as 100 feeders, allowing each needle to select up 100 threads per revolution. Both latch and spring needles are used, with the previous more common. Modern, large, circular, plain or jersey machines having 90–100 feeders are frequently wont to produce medium-weight fabric. Small bladelike units, or sinkers, are inserted between every two needles to interact and hold the finished fabric, preventing it from riding up with the needles as they're lifted to make new stitches. Machines could also be fitted with pattern wheels controlling needle action to supply tuck and float stitches, and a Jacquard mechanism can also be attached. Stop motions are essential to prevent the machine when a thread breaks. Because yarn tension affects fabric uniformity, various tension controllers are devised. an alternate method, positive feed, which feeds precisely measured amounts of yarn into the machine, is now considered more satisfactory.
Circular rib machines contains a vertical cylinder, with needle slots on the surface , and a horizontal bed within the sort of a circular plate or dial with needle slots cut radially, in order that the 2 sets of needles are arranged at right angles to every other.
Seamless hosiery, knitted in tubular form, is produced by circular knitting machines. Modern hosiery machines, like the Komet machine, employ double-hooked needles directly opposite one another within the same plane to knit the leg and foot portions, the heel and therefore the toe. The toe is later closed a separate operation. within the Getaz toe, the seam is placed under the toes rather than on top of them.
Underwear fabrics are usually knitted on circular machines, and—except for full-fashioned underwear, tights, and leotards, which are knitted to pattern and sewn together—underwear making may be a cut, make, and trim operation. Tights or panty hose are a mixture of hosiery and underwear and may be full-fashioned . Seamless panty hose are made on circular hose machines modified to form very long stockings with open tops, two of which are cut open at opposite sides and seamed together front and back. The wearing quality and fit of recent panty hose are greatly improved with the event of stretch nylon and spandex, and greater variety has been introduced with the event of texturized yarn.
Much hosiery is finished by washing, drying, and a boarding process during which the hosiery is drawn over a skinny metal or wooden sort of appropriate shape and pressed between two heated surfaces. The introduction of nylon fibre led to the event of a preboarding process, setting the loops and therefore the fabric within the required shape before dyeing and finishing. The article, fitted on a sort of appropriate shape, is placed in an autoclave or skilled a high-temperature setting unit. Fabric treated during this way doesn't distort during dyeing.
Circular knitting machines are often adapted to form simulated furs. One type intermeshes plush loops with the plain-stitch base fabric then cuts the loops, producing a pile. A more common method forms the pile with a carded sliver. A plain-stitch fabric is employed because the base and loose fibres from a sliver, fed from a brushing or carding device, are inserted by a V-shaped claw, forming the pile. Pile depth is decided by the length of the fibres within the sliver.
One of the foremost sophisticated textile machine s incorporates electronic selection of sinkers during a Jacquard circular knitting machine.
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Warp knitting
The two sorts of warp knitting are raschel, made with latch needles, and tricot, using bearded needles.
Raschel
Coarser yarns are generally used for raschel knitting, and there has recently been interest in knitting staple yarns on these machines. within the Raschel machine, the needles move during a ground plate , called the trick plate. the highest of this plate, the verge, defines the extent of the finished loops on the needle shank. The loops are prevented from moving upward when the needle rises by the downward pull of the material and therefore the sinkers between the needles. Guide bars feed the yarn to the needles. during a knitting cycle, the needles start at rock bottom point, when the preceding loop has just been remove , and therefore the new loop joins the needle hook to the material . The needles rise, while the new loop opens the latches and finishes up on the shank below the latch. The guide bars then swing through the needles, and therefore the front bar moves one needle space sideways. When the guide bar swings back to the front of the machine, the front bar has laid the thread on the hooks. The needles fall, the sooner loops close the latch to trap the new loops, and therefore the old loops are remove . Raschels, made during a sort of forms, are usually more open in construction and coarser in texture than are other warp knits.
Tricot
Tricot, a warp knit made with two sets of threads, is characterized by fine ribs running vertically on the material face and horizontally on its back. The tricot textile machine makes light fabrics, weighing but four ounces per sq yd . Its development was stimulated by the invention of the so-called FNF compound needle, a sturdy device that later fell into disuse but that made possible improved production speeds. Although approximately half the tricot machines in current use make plain fabrics on two guide bars, there's increasing interest in pattern knitting. during this sort of knitting, the warp-knitting cycle requires close control on the lateral bar motion, achieved by control chains made from chunky metal links.
Special effects in warp knits
The scope of warp knitting has been extended by the event of procedures for laying in nonknitted threads for colour, density, and texture effects (or inlaying), although such threads can also be an important a part of the structure. for instance , within the form called “zigzagging across several pillars,” the bottom of most raschel fabrics, the front bar makes crochet chains, or “pillars,” which are connected by zigzag inlays.
An extension of conventional warp knitting is that the Co-We-Nit warp-knitting machine, producing fabrics with the properties of both woven and knitted fabrics. The machines need have only two warp-forming warps and provision for up to eight interlooped warp threads between each chain of loops. These warp threads are interlaced with a quasiweft, forming a cloth resembling woven cloth on one side.
Other interlaced fabrics
Net and tatting
The popularity of handmade laces led to the invention of lace-making machines. the first models required intricate engineering mechanisms, and therefore the development of the fashionable lace industry originated when a machine was designed to supply laces identical with Brussels lace . within the Heathcot, or bobbinet, machine, warp threads were arranged in order that the threads moved downward because the beams unwound. Other threads were wound on thin, flat spools or bobbins held in narrow carriages that would move during a groove or comb in two rows. The carriages carrying the bobbins were placed on one side of the vertical warp threads and given a pendulum-like motion, causing them to pass between the warp threads. The warp threads were then moved sideways, in order that on the return swing each bobbin thread passed around one among them. Then the warp threads moved sideways within the other way , thus completing a wrapping movement. additionally , each row of bobbins was moved by a rack-and-pinion gearing, one row to the left and one to the proper . As these movements continued, the threads were laid diagonally across the material because the warp was delivered. Improvements on the Heathcot machine followed through the 19th century: Nottingham-lace machines, used primarily for coarse-lace production, employ larger bobbins, and therefore the pattern threads are wound independently on section spools; in another type, the Barmens machine, threads on king bobbins on carriers are plaited together, sometimes with warp threads.
Schiffli lace, a kind of embroidery, is formed by modern machines, evolved from a hand version, using needles with points at each end. Several hundred needles are placed horizontally, often in two rows, one above the opposite . the material to be embroidered is held vertically during a frame extending the complete width of the machine, and therefore the needles, furnished with yarn from individual spools, move backward and forward through the material . At each penetration a shuttle moves upward and interlaces yarn with the needle loop. Movement of both fabric and needles is controlled by Jacquard systems.
Many types of machine-made laces are made, frequently with geometrically shaped nets forming their backgrounds. Formerly made only of cotton, they're now frequently made up of synthetic fibre yarns. Bobbinet lace, essentially a hexagonal net, is employed as a base for appliqué work for durable non-run net hosiery, and, when heavily sized, for such materials as millinery and veilings. Barmens lace features a fairly heavy texture and an angular pattern; flowing lines, heavy outline cords, and fine net backgrounds aren't usually made on Barmens machines.
The introduction of light-resistant polyester yarns led to a revival of Nottingham machine-made curtains. Leavers lace is out there in an infinite sort of patterns, since the manufacturing technique allows use of just about any sort of yarn. The high strength and relatively low cost of synthetic fibre yarns has made sheer laces widely available.
Net, an open fabric having geometrically shaped, open meshes, is produced with meshes starting from fine to large. Formerly made by hand, the varied types are now made on knitting machines. Popular types include bobbinet, made with hexagonal-shaped mesh and used for formal gowns, veils, and curtains, and tulle, a closely constructed fine net having similar uses. Fishnet, a rough type with knots in four corners forming the mesh formerly made by fishermen, is now a well-liked machine-made curtain fabric.
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Braiding or plaiting
Braid is formed by interlacing three or more yarns or fabric strips, forming a flat or tubular narrow fabric. it's used as trimming and for belts and is additionally sewn together to form hats and braided rugs. Plaiting, usually used synonymously with braiding, could also be utilized in a more limited sense, applying only to a braid made up of such materials as rope and straw.
Noninterlaced fabrics
With the exception of felt, nonwoven materials are within the early stages of development. there's controversy about the precise meaning of the term nonwoven, but one authority defines nonwoven fabrics as textile fabrics made from a fibrous layer having randomly laid or oriented fibres or threads.
Felt
Felts are a category of materials or fibrous structures obtained through the interlocking of wool, fur, or some hair fibres under conditions of warmth , moisture, and pressure. Other fibres won't felt alone but are often mixed with wool, which acts as a carrier. Three separate industries manufacture goods through the utilization of those properties. the products produced are wool felt, in rolls and sheets; hats, both fur and wool; and woven felts, starting from thin billiard tablecloths to heavy industrial fabrics used for dewatering within the manufacture of paper. Felts of the nonwoven class are considered to be the primary textile goods produced, and lots of references could also be found to felts and their uses within the histories of ancient civilizations. The nomadic tribes of north central Asia still produce felts for clothing and shelter, utilizing the primitive methods handed down from antiquity.
Bonding
Several methods for creating nonwoven materials are now firmly established, et al. are being developed.
In adhesive bonding, fabrics are made by forming an internet of fibres, applying an adhesive, then drying and curing the adhesive. the online are often produced by a garnett machine or a standard card, several layers being accumulated to get the specified thickness. Such webs are weak across the width, but this doesn't limit their use surely end products. A more uniform product results from cross laying the online . Other machines, like the Rando-Webber, lay down the fibres by an airstream.
The fibres within the web could also be stuck together in various ways. the online could also be sprayed with an emulsion of an adhesive—e.g., a latex supported rubber , acrylic derivatives, or natural rubber—or, alternatively, could also be carried on a mesh screen through a shower of latex, the surplus being squeezed out by a pair of rollers. Adhesives can also be applied as a foam or a fine powder. Thermoplastic fibres are often incorporated within the blend and on heating will bond together, giving strength to the mass of fibres.
Mechanically bonded nonwoven products (or fibre-bonded nonwovens) are webs strengthened by mechanical means. The web, sometimes reinforced by a skinny cotton scrim within the middle or by texturized yarns distributed lengthwise through it, is punched by barbed needles mounted during a needle board. The fibres within the web are trapped by the needle barbs, and therefore the resulting increased entanglement yields a compact product sufficiently strong for several purposes. Modern needle-felting or punching machines perform 900 punches per minute, and selection of appropriate needles is predicated on the fibre being processed and therefore the desired product.
The Arachne machine, the simplest known unit for stitch bonding, operates very similar to a warp-knitting machine. Fibrous web is fed into the machine, and stitches are made by a series of needles placed about eight millimetres apart, giving the online longitudinal strength; lateral strength is provided by the fibre interactions. The products are attractive for several purposes and may be improved by treatment with polyester resins to extend their wear resistance and with thermosetting precondensates to scale back their tendency to tablet (e.g., to make small tangles). a replacement device attached to the Arachne machine permits introduction of weft ends at every single course, making colour effects possible. Araloop machines yield loop-pile fabric suitable for towels and floor coverings.
Three sewing-knitting machines were invented in East Germany in 1958. within the Malimo machine process, warp yarns are placed on top of filling yarns and stitched together by a 3rd yarn. The Maliwatt machine interlaces an internet of fibres with a stitching thread, giving the effect of parallel seams. The Malipol machine produces a one-sided pile fabric by stitching loop pile through a backing fabric. a replacement British process makes double-sided terry fabric, called Terrytuft, by inserting pile yarn into a backing and knotting it into position.
Webs made from yarns having a core of 1 polymer and an outer sheath of another material having a lower softening point could also be lightly pressed then heated to an appropriate temperature. The core yarn will “spot weld” together at the junction points, binding the mass of fibres together. Products made during this way find uses as industrial fabrics, coatings, and interlinings.
Laminating
The joining of 1 fabric to a different by an adhesive like natural rubber has long been practiced in rainwear manufacture. Composite materials were later joined by bonding a layer of polyurethane or other foam to a standard textile fabric. the 2 components were stuck together by flame bonding or by an adhesive within the sort of endless coating, in spots, or as a powder. This laminating process has been extended to the joining of two layers of cloth . Each fabric layer are often quite thin, and therefore the amount and sort of adhesive are chosen to feature only minimum stiffening. Such materials offer a spread of applications. A coating fabric, for instance , could also be joined to a lining; dimensionally stable composites are often made up of cloth layers that are in themselves dimensionally unstable. Acetate knitted fabrics are frequently used as backing material in laminates.