Fabric Formation

Warp size itself is a high-volume waste stream that deserves attention because it essentially all becomes a waste from the desizing operation after weaving. About 200 million pounds of warp size are used each year in the United States alone. Of this, about two thirds is starch and about one third is other types, mostly PVOH. PVOH can be recovered, but for economic and technical reasons, only about one third of all recoverable sizes are actually recovered. Thus over 90% of warp size, or 180 million pounds a year in the United States, is preplanned waste [1]. 

There are several warp size alternatives as noted above (i.e., starch, PVOH, CMC, PVAc, PAA, and polyester). These materials are quite different in BOD, TOC, and COD, as well as degradability. Also PVOH and CMC are recoverable, whereas starch is not. In general, it is not feasible to recover mixed sizes. Typical BOD values and add-on levels are given in the Table 7.14 [33]. 

One particular type of weaving machine, the water jet loom, produces waste-water as weU as air pollution from drying operations. Generally the water from water jet weaving and from vacnum extraction prior to drying is filtered and recycled. 

Knitting operations are not regarded as significant pollution sources, but, like sizing and weaving, they have the potential to impact downstream processes. Downstream waste is reduced by attention to fabric design, fabric quality, lubricant, or size amount and type. 

Carpet waste amounts to about 2% of the total annual production of 900 million square yards, or 18 million square yards of waste. The dollar value of this waste is about 100 million. One carpet manufacturing operation that produced about 8 million square yards of carpet annually was found to have wastes as shown in Table 7.15 [34]. 

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After the fabric formation process, textiles are generally subjected to either dyeiag or printing and to a variety of mechanical and chemical finishing operations. The specific nature of the dyeiag and finishing operations depends on the fiber type and on the iatended use of the fabric. 

The islands-in-the-sea approach uses bico technology to extrude filaments that contain a multiplicity of small fibrils encased in a soluble matrix. After fiber processing and fabric formation, the matrix is dissolved away to leave behind the microfibers. Fibers with sub-micron diameters can be produced. The process is expensive, but luxurious fabrics and nonwoven materials such as Ultrasuede are made in this way. 

As a form of direct fabric evidence, the physical shapes of textile fabric pseudomorphs have been studied to identify fiber type and yam and fabric construction. Pseudomorphs of paired filaments in mineralized fabric formations found on Shang-period bronze weapons were determined to be replaced silk (I, 2) S-and Z-twisted silk staple yarn pseudomorphs were identified as well as fabric constructions, including float yams and a ribbed weave. 

At approximately 5.5 cm from the crosspiece and at the edge of a crushed area, the pseudomorphs change in their geometric relationship with respect to the straight edge of side A. Between the crosspiece and the crushed area, both yarn and fabric formation exhibit a 60° angle... 

Several layers of fabric-type formations were observed in each location. It is impossible to know whether these pseudomorphs consisted of a single fabric with surface decoration or several layers of the same fabric or even different fabrics (18). The upper or top layers of the fabric formations generally contained large black yarns parallel to each other (system A). Rather consistently, the green, single-fiber yarn and the paired-fiber yarns appeared in both systems A and B or in one (system B) that interlaced with black yarns in the other (system A). Green, paired-fiber yarns also appeared occasionally along the surface in a nonrectilinear situation. 

Pseudomorphs on a bronze Shang Dynasty halberd (ca. 1300 b.c.) were subjected to mineralogical analysis to determine their structure and composition. X-Ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive analysis of x-rays were used in these analyses. Photomicrographs of pseudomorphs also were studied for fiber, yam, and fabric formations that give evidence of textiles. A model describing the process of silk pseudomorph formation was proposed. 

Two categories of pseudomorphic textile fabric formations were identified. One, the yam type, moves in and out of the second, the fabric type. At least six areas of the latter are apparent. 

Ra5mond, J.C., Stuart, V.A., 1998. Fabric formation of narrow and wovens. In CMI Industries, Inc., AATCC Symposium, Hilton Executive Park, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. 

Nonwoven geotextiles. Nonwoven fabrics are defined as a sheet, web, or batt of directionally or randomly oriented fibres/filaments, bonded either by friction, and/or cohesion, and/or adhesion. In general, nonwoven fabric formation can be considered as a two-step process web formation (aligning the fibres with certain orientation characteristics) and bonding these fibres by mechanical, thermal, or chemical means. This two-step process has formed the classification of nonwoven structures, i.e. carded, airlaid, spunlaid, meltblown, needlepunched, hydroentangled, adhesive bonded, thermal bonded, stitch bonded, etc. Some of the important processes that are used for the manufacture of nonwoven geotextiles are discussed below. 

George, B., et al., 2005. Integration of Fabric Formation and Coloration Processes. National Textile Center, Philadelphia, USA. Available at www.ntcresearch.org/pdf-rpts/ Bref0605ZC02-PH03-05e.pdf (accessed 10.04.12). 

George, B.R., et al., 2006. Integration of fabric formation and coloration processes, fii Ujiie, H. (Ed.), Digital Printing of Textiles. Woodhead, Cambridge, England, pp. 123 143. 

What makes this combined process advantageous is the breaking-up plant serves its purpose of producing reclaimed fibres and, at the same time, forms fabric material. Waste formed in the process of fabric formation is routed back into the material feed-in. This combination of processes is special for the direct correlation between the initial material of textile waste and the designed parameters of the textile mat. This correlation exists with no further process-related requirements. That is, the structure of the textile waste needs to be broken up no further than is necessary to meet the requirements of product functionality. Mass per unit area and thickness can be kept constant by means of particular steps of machine control. The combined process even allows one to use fibre materials which are difficult or impossible to process in a conventional way, as described in the following ... 

Fabric formation Aiternative truss configurations and assemblies... 

More specifically, during the fabric formation (Fig. 17.2(a)), three main operations are achieved in this area the selection of warp yarns by the heddles (Fig. 17.2(b)), the insertion of weft yams (Fig. 17.2(c)) and the compaction of the weft yam inside the fabric-forming line by the weaving reed (Fig. 17.2(d)) of the loom. The temples, positioned at the edges of the fabric, ensure the tension in the fabric width direction of warp yams. 

Choogin, V., Bandara, P., Chepelyuk, E., 2013. Woven Fabric Formation Principles and Methods. In Mechanisms of Flat Weaving Technology, s.l. Woodhead Publishing, pp. 116—121. 

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