Reducing the costs and processing time of knitted and woven materials.
If you work in the textile industry then you already know that textiles have a special structure, their flexibility leading to major dimensional changes that occur immediately after the process of knitting or weaving, thus the fibres start tensioning during baling, packaging or transport.
For this reason, special care is required during processing of the materials wich leads to longer times of manufacturing, thus delaying the production times. In particular, nowadays materials become more sensitive and difficult to process because of the chemical treatments to which they are subjected (painting, softing, etc.).
It is no longer a secret for anyone in the textile production field that knitted materials, especially those made of natural fiber, require a relaxing time before processing and manufacturing. This relaxation time (between 12-48 h depending on the structure) is necessary to stabilize the material which due to baling and transport has different uneven tensionings on its entire surface. This stabilization is necessary before cutting and sewing parts from the knitted fabric, so that the level of shrinkage during further processing of the material (spreading, fusing, sewing, ironing) remains within the accepted parameters.
Another pressing issue when it comes to relaxing the materials before processing them is that they occupy a significant amount of space inside of the production area, space that can no longer be used for other operations. Often the relaxation time is not enough to stabilize the materials and then those in production are forced to cut samples of material that will be passed through the entire technological process of manufacturing to find out the real value of material contraction, thus leading to material loss.
After finding these values (on the x and y axis or even on the diagonal of the sample) most of the time surplus of material is added to the material reserves that are already used in the sewing process (using the CAD pattern design system) so that at the end the dimensions of the garments would fit the sizes required by the beneficiary.
It has been tried over the time to stabilize these materials more precisely with the help of sophisticated and expensive machines with which the knitted material was subjected to a treatment at high temperatures, humidification and drying. However, the result is not satisfactory and the machines used for this metod require major investments (60,000 – 120,000 euros).
Due to this difficult aspect in the processing of knitted and woven textiles, our company together with our partner VEIT GROUP from Germany has created a system verified and tested in our customers’ production areas. A system that stabilizes the material during the spreading process so that shrinkage values are substantially reduced. All that at a lower cost and a higher efficiency than the metod described above.
This process is carried out by means of a steam lance with nozzles, wich is mounted directly on the spreading machine through which the knitted or unstable woven material are steamed, controlled and stabilized before the cutting process. After the steaming, the spreadead material will remain up to one – maximum two hours on the spreading table, after which it can be cut without problems and introduced directly into the technological process.
This procedure has multiple advantages:
- Reducing the relaxation time from 12-48 hours to 1-2 hours;
- The space from the production hall is no longer rendered uselees during the relaxation process;
- You don’t need to unwind or lay the material to relax it;
- It does not require additional operations, spreading is already an operation that is part of the technological process;
- It is no longer necessary to add material reserves for the cutting process because the material is stable and has allowable shrinkage values;
- Material savings of up to 5% due to material stabilization and pattern design of much smaller additional reserves or none at all;
- Reduction of needle cuts – when sewing, the needle often pierces the fabric, damaging the knitting stitches and thus causing multiple scraps. Due to the steaming, the knitting stitches are more stable, the needle sliding on their edge, without piercing them;
- Reduction of electrostatic charges – the best remedy for electrostatic charges especially for natural and synthetic fiber materials is moisture. Due to the steaming process, the knitted material retains a certain percentage of moisture inside and it cancels the electrostatic charges produced due to friction during the manufacturing process;
- Shorter ironing time required because the material gets to the ironing process with fewer creases or wrinkles due to the manufacturing process;
- This steaming system can be mounted on most spreading machines, provided that they are not older than 8-10 years.
The system consists of:
a VEIT mobile steam generator
a steam lance
an existing spreading machine (not older than 8-10 years) or a fully equipped Bullmer spreading machine
As previously mentioned, the Veit steam lance can be mounted on the existing spreading machine in your production line, but it must not be older than 8-10 years.
If you want to buy a spreading machine with the steam system already mounted on it, we can offer you the spreading machines from our Bullmer Group partner.
We would like to mention that this system is tested in production areas of several partners of ours (world renowned companies) and it has proven to be very helpful.
For more information or price offers, always call us with confidence.
We hope you found this article useful!
The product described in this article is not on the site and is only available on demand…