No-Twist Weft Feeder for            Weaving Carbon Fiber

Posted by Maureen Redmond on Nov 15, 2017 1:21:47 PM

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 When weaving carbon fiber, the weft fiber has traditionally been fed to the loom by pulling fiber off the end of the package. This results in a twist in the carbon fiber with every wrap of fiber that gets pulled off. As carbon fiber is typically preferred flat without twist, this degrades the woven fabric. Additionally, pulling fiber from the package causes ballooning of the fiber and often times the balloons will contact fiber guides along its path which damage the fiber. 

The solution to this is the WF-510, a weft feeder designed specifically for carbon fiber and other flat materials. By utilizing an air dancer, this weft accumulator synchronizes with the weaving machine to supply weft fiber by unrolling it rather than pulling it off the end of the package, thus supplying the weft fiber twist free. There are no complicated timing signals to incorporate with the loom, which makes setup easy and simple.

Below are some of the benefits of using the WF-510 for weaving carbon fiber as well as other flat materials.

 

 

Basic advantages

Below are some of the basic and obvious advantages of using the WF-510 in conjunction with the loom for weaving carbon fiber.

  • Twist in the carbon fiber will become visible in the carbon fiber fabric. For carbon fiber fabric which is used for aesthetics of a product, the use of the WF-510 enables production of twist/defect free fabric.
  • The WF-510 will get rid of carbon fiber fuzz that may be present in the carbon fiber package. Since the air dancer utilizes a vacuum, it naturally rids the fiber of any fuzz that is attached to it, removing it before it gets woven into the fabric.
  • The delivery of weft is gentle, unlike pulling it off end of the package which usually whips it around before entering the weaving machine.
  • The incorporation of the WF-510 increases efficiency and decreases downtime, as weft insertion faults are less likely to occur.

 Other advantages

The Composites Division at the University in Aachen has conducted further trials utilizing the WF-510. Some benefits utilizing the system were revealed in their studies.

  • An increase in coverage (less gaps):  Utilization of the WF-510 increased the coverage ratio of the fabric significantly, compared to utilizing traditional rotary style weft accumulators or feeding the fiber directly by pulling off end of the package.
  • An increase in tensile strength of the fabric in the weft direction: Tensile force tests revealed that there was an increase of tensile strength of plain weave fabrics when using the WF-510, compared to other weft feeding methods.

 

If you don’t know exactly what you need and would like a professional opinion, the engineers at Izumi International would be happy to assist you on your particular needs. Call us at 864.288.8001 or contact us online