AN UPDATE OF SIZE-FREE WEAVING RESEARCH AT SRRC

Authors: Sawhney, Amar; Price, John; Calamari Jr, Timothy; Sachinvala, Navzer

Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/1/2004
Publication Date: 6/1/2004
Citation: Sawhney, A.P., Price, J.B., Calamari Jr, T.A., Sachinvala, N.D. 2004. An update of size-free weaving research at srrc. National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference. CD-ROM, p. 2722.

Interpretive Summary: More than 60% of cotton production generally goes into woven fabrics. Although the woven fabrics exhibit far better performance and functional attributes than either the knitted fabrics or the nonwovens (i.e., the other two main types of fabrics that utilize entirely different methods of manufacturing or fabricating textile fabrics), they (the woven fabrics) generally are also far more costly to produce. This is mainly because of the high cost of weaving, which also includes the costs associated with the warp sizing and, consequently, the fabric desizing, which are essential for weaving. These extra costs of yarn sizing and fabric desizing are what the cotton producers and user mills actually want to eliminate by essentially eliminating the underlying process of warp sizing and, thereby, shortening the processing chain of converting cotton fiber into a woven fabric. Additionally, both warp sizing and fabric desizing are very complex and environmentally sensitive because they involve use of a lot of expensive chemicals, energy and water and generate tons of waste water which must be safely disposed to preserve a friendly environment. The textile industry has asked USDA to find ways and means to eliminate the warp sizing. The scientists at SRRC have investigated size-free weaving, using a multi-pronged research approach which mainly involved manipulations of fiber quality, yarn structure, yarn preparation, weaving machinery modifications, and fabric structure. Results of preliminary investigations have been extremely encouraging in the sense that fifty yards of 100% fabric was woven on a commercial machine, operating under mill-like conditions, without warp sizing and without a single warp yarn failure, for the first time ever. This paper briefly discusses the work done thus far and the future plan of work involving a variety of classic fibers, yarns and fabric constructions, using a modern high speed weaving machine that the Center has just acquired for the purpose.

Technical Abstract: About three years ago, a totally new ARS-CRIS project on size-free weaving of cotton yarns was approved and initiated at SRRC. The initial program, based on experimentation with a conventional fly-shuttle loom, has been surprisingly successful in the sense that 50 meters of a 100% cotton fabric of a relatively less-dense construction was efficiently woven without the warp sizing and without a single warp yarn failure during weaving, for the first time ever. Since the American textile industry now does almost all of its weaving on modern high speed weaving machines, which are significantly different from the conventional weaving machines and, hence, can affect size-free weaving performance considerably, the size-free weaving research at SRRC is now being expanded to include a modern Pignone (Sulzer-Ruti) high speed flexible-rapier weaving machine that the Center has recently acquired. This report is a brief description of the past research and of the new research plan that involves size-free weaving investigations of different types of fibers, yarns and fabrics, using the new weaving machine.