Page 92 - Industrial Cutting of Textile Materials

Automated spreading of textile materials 79

lowest fabric plies during this process (see Section 4.2.2). The perforation of the
paper is necessary to ensure air penetration and to compress the spread lays together
by help of vacuum system during the automated cutting process (see Chapter 9.3.4).
The spreading process may be performed in semiautomated and fully automated
modes.

6.3.13.1 Semiautomated spreading process
In the semiautomated spreading process, the operator moves along the spreading
table (walking or riding on a stand panel) and follows the spreading process. The
operator smooths the surface of the lay, identifies faults in the spread fabric, and
decides whether to leave faults in the spread or to cut them out. The operator uses
a manually operated speed control handle to change the spreading speed and to
reduce the speed in problematic areas or even to stop the spreading process if it is
necessary to define the location of faults and to cut them out. Some machines have
three control buttons instead of a speed control handle: forward, reverse, and stop.
In these machines, the height of the cutting device is also changed manually or by
using a special control button.

6.3.13.2 Fully automated spreading process
The fully automated spreading process is used for high-quality materials that are eas-
ily spread. An operator sets the necessary parameters (the length of the lay, the spread-
ing speed, the fabric tension, etc.). The spreading machine automatically performs
the following operations: lays the fabric in the required length of the spread, cuts the
material at the end of every ply, counts the number of plies, and stops after laying the
required number of plies.

6.4 Spreading machines with stationary feeding systems
(fabric pulling machines)

The spreading machines with this kind of feeding systems consist of two parts – a
fixed and a movable part. The fixed part of a spreading machine is placed next to the
spreading table (more precisely – at the beginning of the spreading table) to keep the
fabric roll during the spreading process. It can be designed:

As a bar: normally freely moving fixed on a stand, used for big and heavy fabric roll
●
processing, can be also motorized bar;
As a cradle: mostly motorized multicylinder cradle but can be also cradles with freely
●
moving cylinders.
Several special devices are mounted on the fixed part of the machine to ensure un-
winding, rewinding, and alignment of the fabric during the spreading process.
On the movable part of the spreading machine (see Fig. 6.23), pneumatic clamps
are mounted. They grab the fabric ply, fed from the stationary-placed fabric roll, and