Study on Reduction of Air Consumption on Air Jet Weaving Machine

Study on Reduction of Air Consumption on Air Jet Weaving Machine

Pratik Sunil Raut

Department of Textile Technology

Shri Guru Gobind Singhji Institute of Engineering and Technology, (SGGS I E&T ), Vishnupuri,Nanded, (Maharashtra State, India)

Abstract 

In key concern for any of the owner in textile industry is production. This always attracted  machines manufacturers and researchers to make new developments in machines and processes. Air-jet is one of the successful highest productive weaving machines. However, it is now well established that due to add of charges of compressed air, manufacturing cost of fabric on air-jet weaving machine is higher as compared with rapier and projectile weaving machines. Countries those who are having energy issues majorly does not prefer air-jet weaving machines. Manufacturer's continuously been working on the reduction of air consumption . In this study, we aim to investigate the possibilities to reduce air consumption on current air-jet weaving looms without making a new investment in a weaving mill.  Decrease of air consumption by 21% was achieved in a weaving mill by decreasing the hole diameter of the single-holed relay nozzles and by optimizing the blowing time of the multi-holed relay nozzles.Thus, a company having 202 looms could save 240,000 € per year in electricity costs with almost no expense.This paper elaborates the experimental work which was conducted in the weaving mill in order to reduce air consumption on air-jet looms.

Keywords: Air jet loom,Compressed air consumption,hole diameter of single relay nozzle, blowing time of multi-holed relay nozzle, production

INTRODUCTION

Air-Jet weaving machine is one of the successful and high productive shuttle less weaving machine in Textile industry . Air-jet is device which is used to insert the weft yarn by using high air pressure on the air jet loom. The air is filtered and compressed before  using on loom. Because of the  significant compressed air consumption and additional cost of compressor electricity, the manufacturing cost of air- jet weaving is high as compare with the other weaving systems. This is the reason which is  making air-jet weaving less preferable where energy cost is the problem despite their high production speed rates. For the same reason air-jet weaving machines manufacturers and researchers have been continuously working on reduction of air consumption in their new design to overcome this drawback. Thus this study aims to significantly to reduce air consumption by optimizing some loom parameters in a weaving mill. It is mainly focused on relay nozzles due to the fact that 80% of compressed air is consumed by these nozzles.

Literature reviews

For decades, scores of textile researchers and machine manufactures attempt to develop the construction of air jet  weaving machine as it is very popular in the weaving industries because of its higher productivity and capable of texturing spun and cellulose filament fabrics which could not be produced by other looms [9]. Money-spinning air jet loom is vastly recommended by the producer as textile is a power exhaustive sector. So many articles are published on the theme of air jet loom productivity, air consumption, setting points, history, and sequential development in the construction. Few literary documents on this topic are enlisted in our article. Pioneer Adanur 

published his valuable research text such as he pointed out that the air jet weaving machines belong to the set of interermittent-operation of loom [10]. He also mentioned that the air pressure from the central air tank to the loom cnverted into kinetic energy in the nozzle, which push weft in the air channels differently shaped by loom types . By maintaining the air pressure of the air jet loom along the main valve & relay valve drive time low air will  be consumed without hampering product quality . Poppe studied the air index and claimed that air consumption decreased as the yarn hairiness increased .Tarabadkar indicated the importance of compressors on air consumption in spinning and weaving machines . Many researchers studied the various loom parts such as the nozzle, reed, and valves in order to improve the filling rates and to decrease air consumption and thus they invented an optimum main nozzle design. Scientists like Mohamed and Salama had studied the mechanics of the air-jet filling rates and the nozzle design . Picanol had developed air-index as a measure of weft yarn majorly necessity for air-jet weaving had also led to the development of a new relay nozzle design with 16 holes in order to reduce air consumption . Dornier had developed a PIC (Permanent Insertion Control) system for permanent monitoring of the most important filling insertion elements. In the similar way, Sultex claims an outstanding results with regards to the compressed air consumption on L-5500 looms withn new AWC (Active Weft Control) system . Many other loom makers also claims a great reductions in air consumption following new developments in their designs. Özer Göktepe and Orcun Bozkan showed that weaving mills could obtain considerable savings in energy costs by working with single-holed relay nozzles having smaller hole diameter and by achieving the shortest possible blowing time adjustments on air-jet looms equipped with multi-holed relay nozzles, without any decrease in loom efficiency and performance . Islam M.M., Hanifa A.M.A. showed that using low air pressure air consumption and cost of air-jet loom can be reduced . Raj Kumar Khiani suggested some measures in his paper to reduce the air consumption in air-jet loom . Even if air-jet weaving machines manufacturers and researchers have been continuously working on reduction of air consumption in their new design to overcome the negative aspect of high consumption of air and additional cost of compressor electricity until now there is still deficiency of reliable information on energy efficiency of compressed air for industries 

Experimental details 

This  study was conducted in a large-scale weaving mill having  a total of 202 air-jet looms (75 of the looms were Dornier  LW, model 1997, while 127 of them were Picanol Omni Plus, model 2000). Dornier looms were equipped with single -holed relay nozzles while Picanol looms were equipped with multi-holed relay nozzles. The main aim was to minimize the air consumption by optimizing some parameters of the relay nozzles and the selvedge pattern. For this purpose, the effect of relay nozzle diameter, relay nozzle blowing time, number of holes on the relay nozzles, anbeen changed by the weavers until this study. Experiments regarding relay nozzle diameter and selvedge pattern were conducted on the Dornier looms while optimization of blowing times and number of holes on the relay nozzles were carried out on the Picanol looms. In calculation of the total energy saving, one day was assumed to be 24 hours and a year was assumed to be 365 days since all the machines were running on a 24 hour–365 day basis in the mill. In  order investigate the effect of relay nozzle diameter,two  of the Dornier LW air-jet weaving machines were used.

Both looms weaved the same fabric with the same working parameters except for the relay nozzle diameters, as shown in Table 1. The first loom was equipped with relay nozzles with a single hole of 1.4 mm diameter while the second one was equipped with relay nozzles with a single hole of 1.0 mm diameter (Figure 4). In total, 24 measurements of air consumption were taken by a scaled flow meter on both weaving machines for a two-month period n the second part of the work, blowing times of relay nozzles were optimized on the Picanol Omni Plus looms.D etails of the loom and fabric woven in this part of the experimental work are also given in Table 1. The looms were equipped with the relay nozzles having 19 holes. For optimization, the blowing time of the relay nozzles was reduced dramatically first, then increased periodically at 4- day intervals for fine-tuning to determine the minimum blowing time that enables a problem-free weaving process.

Then the average increase in air consumption with blowing time was measured to calculate the reduction in total air cosumption obtained by decreasing the blowing times of the relay nozzles. Aftter optimization of blowing times, the conventional nozzles having 19 holes on a Picanol Omni Plus loom were replaced with those having 16 holes to obtain further reduction in air consumption as suggested by the manufacturing company (Figure 6). All other machine and fabric parameters were kept the same. 

Loom and fabric parameters:

Loom and fabric parameters   Dornier LW air-jet m/c    Picanol Omni Plus air-jet m/c

Running speed (rpm).              650                                  830

Reed width (cm)                      205                                 235

Reed number                           130/2                               130/2

Number of relay nozzles         28                                    35

Fabric construction                  Plain weave (1/1)           Plain weave (1/1)

Warp yarn                            Ne 30/1 (20 tex) OE-rotor  Ne 30/1 (20 tex) OE-rotor

Weft yarn                             Ne 30/1 (20 tex) OE-rotor  Ne 30/1 (20 tex) OE-rotor

Number of warps                   5346                                   6126

Warp density (warp/cm).       26                                   26

Weft density (weft/cm)         26                                   26

Effect of relay nozzle diameter

 change in air consumption and loom efficiency by using smaller a relay nozzle hole diameter.

Diameter of relay nozzle (mm)	1.4	1
Air consumption in m3/h/loom	63	50
Loom efficiency in percentage	95.4	96.1
Reduction in air consumption per relay nozzle ( m3/h)	0.4643

In the first part of the work, previously used relay nozzles with 1.4 mm hole diameter were replaced with the relay nozzles of 1 mm hole diameter. The reason for selection of the relay nozzles with 1 mm diameter was that they werethe only available nozzle diameters in the weaving mill during the study. With this replacement, air consumption was reduced by 21% while a slight increase in loom efficiency,which is the ratio of net loom running time to the total time spent for production, was obtained, as can be seen in zles with 1 mm diameter. Therefore, it is recommended that the minimum possible relay nozzle diameter that is suitable for the filling yarn linear density used is determined.

Effect of relay nozzle blowing 

In this part of the work, a truly experimental study was con-ducted to optimize the blowing times on Picanol looms.Firstly, the average increase in air consumption with the icrease of blowing time was determined as shown in . Then the minimum blowing time that enables both problem-free weaving and the same loom efficiency level to be maintained was determined.

Deterermination of average increase in air consumption with blowing time.

Blowing time of relay nozzel (In degrees)	Air consumption  (m3/h)	The increase in air consumption per degree  (m3/h)
55	75	-
60	78	0.6
65	82	0.8
70	84	0.4
75	87	0.6
80	90	0.6
85	93	0.6
90	95	0.4
95	98	0.8
100	102	0.6
	Avg	0.6

Measured air consumption values for different relay nozzle blowing time adjustments.

Date	Relay blowing time (in degrees)	Loom efficiency (%)	Saving in air consumption (m3  /h/loom)
2/6/16	99.2	98	0
6/6/16	76.2	97.3	15.96
10/6/16	55.3	97.8	26.34
14/6/16	66.3	97.7	24.32
18/6/16	65.4	98.3	21.36

Conclusion

An experimental work was conducted to reduce the air consumption on air-jet looms in a weaving mill with 202 looms in total. Frstly, relay nozzles with a hole diameter of 1.4 mm replaced those with 1.0 mm diameter on the looms euipped with single-holed nozzles and 20% reduction in air consumption was obtained. Secondly, blowing times were optimized on other make of air-jet looms equipped with multi-holed relay nozzles and this reduced the air consumption by 20%. As a result, 20% reduction in air consumption. umption for both types of air-jet weaving machine used in this work was achieved. Thus, the weaving mill was able to save approximately 1200 €/loom/year which meant a total saving of 240,000 €/year from energy costs with almost no expense. For further reduction in air consumption of looms wijth multi-holed relay nozzles, 19-holed relay nozzles were replaced with the new 16-holed ones as recommended by the manufacturer, as a third attempt to reduce air consumption. However, no additional reduction in air consumption  was obtained contrary to expectations. Finally,the effect of the different number of filling ends per tucking in  applied by the pneumatic tuck-in device was investigated and no significant change in air consumption was recorded. In conclusion, this study showed that weaving mills could obtain considerable savings in energy costs by working with single-holed relay nozzles having smaller hole diameter and by achieving the shortest possible blowing time adjustments on air-jet looms equipped with multi-holed relay nozzles, without any decrease in loom efficiency and performance.

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   Vol 78  (2008)
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    Vol 54 November 3 Dec  2017
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