Page 158 - Industrial Cutting of Textile Materials

Automated cutting of textile materials 145

and ultrasonic tools are fixed on a ‘Premiumcut ULS’ cutter with knife cutting tools by
4
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Topcut-Bullmer , a ‘Elektron B2 Ultra’ cutter by Aeronaut , and others.

9.7 Automated cutting of technical textiles

During the last decade, companies producing automated cutting systems put special
accent to the development of an efficient automated cutting methods for technical
textiles. They comprise a broad palette of materials including treated and untreated
fabrics and woven and nonwoven materials for very different industries, such as fur-
niture; automotive; aerospace; marine; military; sport; home furnishings; personal ac-
cessories; heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); and inflatables.
Unlike garment fabrics, technical textiles vary enormously in composition, width,
weight, thickness, and other qualities that influence their cutting process. The compo-
nents cut from these materials used to be very different – small with intricate shapes
and also huge, many times exceeding the work surface of the cutter. There are many
narrow width industrial textiles, for example, composite materials. At the same time, a
lot of fabrics are very wide (shade cloth, PTFE-coated glass fibre, PVC fabrics are up
to 10 m wide). During the last years, there is tendency to increase the width of techni-
cal textiles as the processing of wider fabrics reduces material waste.
The technical textiles are processed by robust design cutting equipment suitable
for long-running and minimal maintenance. They are available in a range of widths,
lengths, and various toolhead accessory options. The most often single-ply cutters are
used as they are suitable for both low- and high-volume production, ensure higher
cutting accuracy, and are lower priced. High-ply cutters are used for high- volume
production, where very high cutting accuracy is not required, for example, processing
upholstery for furniture and automotive industry.

9.7.1 Cutting table
Both static and conveyorized table cutters have wide application in processing tech-
nical textiles. Often, the kind of the cutting surface – static or conveyorized for the
certain cutter – can be chosen by a customer depending on the specificity of materials
and goods to be cut. The cutters can have different width and unlimited length or can
be fully developed depending on clients' requests.

9.7.1.1 Static tables

Static tables are lower priced and are not limited in width and length. Equipped with
unwind and roll-up devices, they are suitable for processing rolled wide materials to
cut large and simple shape components. Because of continuous material feeding, the
length of the marker is limited only with length of the fabric roll. The static tables can
ensure higher cutting accuracy than conveyorized ones; therefore, the static tables
are also preferable to cut small components with intricate shapes. As cutting surface
during work process is fixed, the static tables can ensure highest cutting precision