The ITMA exhibition, a quadrennial textile industry event, was held in Barcelona, Spain in June 2019. Many of the world’s most innovative textile machinery companies have launched new products at this ITMA. Based on information such as on-site displays, observations and exchanges, and exhibition materials, we will introduce and analyze the spun yarn-related expansion and innovation technologies that the industry is most concerned about, aiming to Share relevant spinning expansion and innovation technology information, and look forward to the industry paying attention to the development trends of spinning innovation technology. Since the relevant technology projects are relatively cutting-edge, and the depth and breadth of the author’s focus is limited, I hope industry colleagues will pay attention to and improve their interpretation of the deficiencies.
1. Spinning yarn piecing robot
1.1 Rieter, Switzerland
Rieter’s first public exhibition of the environment ROBOspin, the automatic splicing robot for spindle spinning machines (see Figure 1), is a highlight in the field of spinning technology at this exhibition, making Rieter’s booth the most popular spinning equipment booth in the exhibition. The spinning machine splicing robot displayed by Rieter is a reciprocating traveling splicing robot configured on one side of the spinning frame. ROBOspin receives information about the corresponding end-break position from the single spindle monitoring system ISM, which can realize the positioning of the end-break spindle position target, pull up the yarn tube, find the yarn end, traveler balloon ring and yarn guide hook threading, to yarn The sequence operation action of the joint.
Figure 1 Rieter spinning machine splicing robot ROBOspin
Spinning machine The application features of the splicing robot ROBOspin include:
(1) Stable and consistent quality: the automated splicing program ensures the stable operation of the yarn splicer, and tries to avoid contact with the bobbin and outer layers during the operation cycle The yarn is contaminated to ensure yarn quality.
(2) Minimal labor, highest productivity: ROBOspin can work continuously 24 hours a day, greatly reducing the need for labor, thereby significantly reducing labor costs. It also reduces the workload of human resource planning and spinning mill management.
The actual splicing operation demonstrated shows that the splicing time from reaching the spindle position to completing the splicing is about 1 minute, and there is a certain probability of unsuccessful splicing. Rieter claims that ROBOspin is specially designed and configured for Rieter spinning machines. One spinning machine must be equipped with two ROBOspins, so the investment cost of 10,000 spindles is not low. Since there is no market quotation yet, it is difficult to evaluate the market effect of industrial application.
1.2 India LMW
LMW also displayed a spun yarn splicing robot to a limited extent at the exhibition, and a spinning frame equipped with a splicing robot The model is LRJ9-SXL, with cluster, fine interlocking and four-roller compact spinning spinpact. Although it is a closed display that strictly controls the visitors, the author still had the opportunity to observe the joint operation of the real sample demonstration. The limited and closed display affects the acquisition of relevant technical information. In terms of operating procedures, the biggest difference between the LMW spun yarn splicing robot and ROBOspin is that LMW adopts a method of finding the yarn end without pulling out the bobbin. From the changes in the yarn breakage detection point, the splicing robot track, the splicing robot volume, and the splicing process, it is basically inferior to Rieter ROBOspin.
1.3 Overview of splicing robots
The automatic splicing technology of ring spinning machine is one of the few technologies in the spinning field that has not been able to truly One of the automation projects to overcome industrial application problems. With the advancement of the times and the development of the industry, as well as the advancement of spinning informatization, automation and intelligence, the re-development of automatic splicing manipulators has been put on the agenda.
Decades after research and development stopped in the last century, the automatic splicing robot for spinning frames made its debut in the new century. Rieter and LMW were launched at the same time, which attracted widespread industry attention and heralded the future. As the conditions for the industrial application of this technology are about to be met at the right time, place, and right time, the application of ring spinning automation technology will move towards the replacement of the most difficult to overcome manual operations of spinning machine joints and turners. Its industrial application will boost the technological progress of ring spinning production.
Automatic splicing technology has attracted great attention in the industry in recent years. There has also been news in China that companies have entered or are preparing to enter the research and development stage. There have also been a number of splicing robot-related projects in China. A patent application was filed, but until the opening of this exhibition, there was no precise information on the development of automatic joint manipulators in China.
2. Multi-balloon ultra-high-speed spinning technology
Spanish Twistechnology company exhibited innovative environmental technology Spindle spinning ultra-long balloon section multi-wave balloon spinning technology, five cotton and woolen spinning machine prototypes of different lengths were displayed at the booth (see Figure 2). It is said that this spinning method can double the production capacity and reduce energy consumption by 20%. The cotton spinning frame uses a three-roller drafting plus Rocas mechanical concentrated spinning device.
Figure 2 Twistechnology company booth
Operation from the prototype site It can be seen that the distance from the top of the yarn tube to the yarn guide hook is about 600mm, and the yarn spacer plate is also greatly lengthened, but there is a distance between the yarn spacer plate and the yarn guide hook, and there is no air ring between the steel collar and the yarn guide hook. control loop (see Figure 3). During the demonstrated spinning process, both the spinning section and the balloon section showed multi-wave knot free balloons. The spinning section had 4 small balloons and the balloon section had 8 balloons (see Figure 4).Sub-speed, etc. will still restrict the application of ultra-high-speed production of ring spinning. These problems are all issues that need to be solved urgently to overcome the problems of ultra-high-speed ring spinning.
After on-site communication with experts from Twistechnology, we learned that they had indeed not found a traveler that could sustain ultra-high speed operation, and could only demonstrate using existing steel ring travellers. . The flying traveler became a major obstacle to frequent breakages and further speed increases. This situation is still in line with the industry consensus in the existing technology: the traveler linear speed limit is 40~45 meters/second, which cannot be effectively broken through. Drost’s demonstration of multi-wave throttle high-speed spinning technology is not to claim that this technology can be applied maturely, but to show the industry that this technology has the potential to break through the spindle speed limit of ring spinning, and hopes that by demonstrating this technology The live demonstration of spinning attracts the attention of the industry and seeks partners to jointly develop this technology.
3. Toyota’s future spinning technology
Japanese Toyota Company exhibited a new type of yarn at the exhibition in a strictly limited manner The spinning machine is said to have a spinning speed of 50KRPM, breaking through people’s imagination of spinning technology and is called “Toyota’s future spinning technology.” Due to the limited display, most visitors, including the author, were not able to get a chance to see its beauty. They could only synthesize some scattered information to make a preliminary judgment on the technology.
Relevant information about this new technology obtained during the exhibition includes: ring-less traveler, spinning in a pot-shaped cylinder, intermittent spinning + unwinding process, spindle speed up to 50KRPM . Based on this information, the author initially judged it to be centrifugal spinning. And recalled the domestic centrifugal spinning prototype seen at the 2006 Beijing International Textile Machinery Exhibition. The patent information related to this technology seen in 2006 is: the invention name is automatic centrifugal spinning machine (see Figure 6), the patent application number is 200610048034.3, and the patent applicant is Shenyang Huayue Machinery Co., Ltd. The patent application date was October 17, 2006, which was the opening day of the Textile Machinery Exhibition that year.
Figure 6 Shenyang Huayue Machinery Company’s 2006 automatic centrifugal spinning machine patent
After the ITMA2019 exhibition, from August to October 2019, the China Patent Office disclosed no less than 6 patents (see Figure 7) related to centrifugal spinning machines applied by Toyota of Japan (see Table 1).
Figure 7 Toyota centrifugal spinning machine patent
Developing centrifugal spinning machine technology into “Toyota Future Spinning Technology” is a re-innovation based on existing technology. Toyota must overcome relevant technical problems and break through tradition to create the future.
IV. Conclusion
It is inevitable to miss out on all the new spinning technologies at the exhibition. The display of many new spinning technologies truly proves that spinning technology in the traditional field is constantly showing new branches and green leaves. Among them are long-awaited automation informatization projects, cost-effective process technology breakthroughs, and unimaginable high-speed spinning. Industry innovation has achieved impressive results.
In the field of ring spinning, if the spindle speed of about 20KRPM is called high-speed spinning, and about 30KRPM is called ultra-high-speed spinning, then the spindle speed of about 40KRPM can be called very high-speed spinning. After spinning, traditional industries have not stopped and are still working hard to welcome the future.
At the 7th National Innovation Conference held by China Yarn Network on March 15, 2019, the author publicly judged: “….According to the development trend, other automation in the spinning field It is also worth looking forward to the accelerated overcoming of difficult problems. For example, automatic splicing robots for spinning machines, automatic winding precision winding, and even twisting and winding of spinning machines may also produce breakthroughs.” At the ITMA three months later, several technologies have made new progress, which is something the industry is happy about, but unfortunately, they are basically not what we, a big textile country, have shown.
In this great era and this industry that never sets, what do we want to do and what can we do? How to contribute to becoming a textile power? It is indeed a question worth thinking about. In the trend of the times and the industry, Chinese textile companies, which are on the main battlefield in the textile field, should not fall behind!
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