From the Sector

The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) held its 16th Annual Meeting March 19-21 in Washington, DC.  Elected as NCTO officers for 2019 are:

• Chairman – Leib Oehmig, CEO of Glen Raven, Inc.
• Mr. Oehmig is CEO of Glen Raven, Inc., based in Glen Raven, North Carolina.  Glen Raven is an innovative leader in textile research and development, dying, spinning, weaving and finishing, and distribution and logistics.
• Vice Chairman – David Roberts, CEO of CAP Yarns, Inc.
• Mr. Roberts is CEO of CAP Yarns, Inc., based in Clover, South Carolina.  CAP Yarns is a specialty yarn manufacturer and a leader in developing unique yarns for the knitting and weaving industry.

NCTO is a Washington, DC-based trade association that represents domestic textile manufacturers.  

• U.S. employment in the textile supply chain was 594,147 in 2018.  
• The value of shipments for U.S. textiles and apparel was $76.8 billion in 2018.  
• U.S. exports of fiber, textiles and apparel were $30.1 billion in 2018.  
• Capital expenditures for textile and apparel production totaled $2.0 billion in 2017, the last year for which data is available.

The Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) has awarded two prizes to graduates of the Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) of RWTH Aachen University - the dissertation prize and the creativity prize of the Walter Reiners Foundation of German Textile Machinery 2018. ITA alumnus Dr Benjamin Weise was awarded the dissertation prize for the development of novel fibres for textile charge storage devices. For their work on a guide to 4D product design, Jan Merlin Abram and Aalon Tal (both ITA students) were honoured with the creativity prize. The dissertation prize is endowed with €5,000 whilst the creativity prize contains a one-year scholarship of €250 per month. Peter D. Dornier, President of the Walter Reiners Foundation and Chairman of the Management Board of Lindauer DORNIER, presented the awards on the 18 September 2018 at the 18th Textile Machinery Forum in the Digital Capability Center in Aachen, Germany.

Graphene revolutionizes all-in-one - supercaps, reduction of terahertz radiation and antistatics

In his dissertation "Development of graphene-modified multifilament yarns for the production of textile charge storage devices", laureate Dr Benjamin Weise developed novel fibres made of polyamide and graphene and further processed them into textile surfaces. The newly developed polyamide graphene fibres are featuring a multitude of advantages:

• Due to their high performance in the charge storage area, they are predestined for use in double-layer capacitors, so-called super capacitors, or supercaps in short. Compared to lithium-ion batteries, supercaps offer significantly higher power density and a longer lifetime as no chemical reactions are taking place. towing to the graphene platelets in the filaments, it is now possible for the first time to integrate a charge storage device directly into a textile without having to sew in a rechargeable battery. This new fibre is therefore suitable for prospective use in smart textiles, for instance in a textile defibrillator.
• The new graphene-modified polyamide fibres can attenuate inident terahertz radiation up to 25 % of their original intensity. Terahertz radiation, for example, offers transmission rates of 100 Mbit/sec and is therefore of high interest for high-performance wireless communication. However, the radiation could damage sensible electronics as in aircrafts if this technology will be used widespread. Consequently, the shielding of the radiation is of high importance, e.g. in the form of fibre composite components in the aircraft, which protect the on-board electronics.
• As the fibres are showcasing a dissipative electrical conductivity, personal protective equipment is another prospective field of application.  

The development of a pilot process for graphene-modified fibres and the production of textile demonstrators are novel and disruptive attainments of Dr Weise’s PhD thesis and the reason for the award ceremony to him. Due to its outstanding properties, the European Union is funding research on graphene within the frame of the "Graphene Flagship" with an overall budget of one billion Euro (source: http://graphene-flagship.eu/project/Pages/About-Graphene-Flagship.aspx).

Modular product design of 4D products is now possible in simplified form

How can three-dimensional products change their shape over time and thus become "four-dimensional"? The students Jan Merlin Abram and Aalon Tal provide answers to this question in their project work "Leitfaden zur Auslegung hybrider morphender Textilien am Beispiel eines Scharniers" (Guidelines for the Design of Hybrid Morphing Textiles Using the Example of a Hinge), for which they were awarded the creativity prize. In their work, the students offer a guideline for the development of a four-dimensional textile from the idea to the demonstrator. Four-dimensional textiles, for example, consist of a hybrid material of elastic textile on which three-dimensional structures are printed. The fourth dimension describes the change in shape and/or a property over a defined period of time (= morphing).  This change is caused by external influences such as light and heat.

Every year, the Foundation of the German Textile Machinery awards prizes for the best dissertation, diploma or master's thesis and the creativity prize for the smartest student research project. Further prizes were awarded to Eric Otto, ITM Dresden, and Susanne Fischer, Reutlingen University.

Image processing system allows cost savings of more than 2,000 euros per year and weaving machine

MSc Marco Saggiomo from the Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) and graduate engineer Marcin Kopaczka from the Institute of Imaging & Computer Vision of RWTH Aachen University (LfB) developed an image processing system for weaving machines that provides comprehensive benefits for woven fabric producers. The image processing system enables the weaving machine to detect faulty pickings autonomously. The application of the image processing system leads to cost savings of at least 2,210 euros per year for each weaving machine in comparison to manual faulty picking repairs.

The researchers won the “Best Student Paper Award” within the framework of the 7th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods (ICPRAM) for their joint paper on “Fully Automatic Faulty Weft Thread Detection using a Camera System and Feature-based Pattern Recognition”. The award confirms the success of the co-operation of both institutes, ITA and LfB, which will be continued in future research projects.

The image processing system is part of the doctoral thesis of Marco Saggiomo. Marcin Kopaczka supported ITA with the development of the image processing algorithm.
The joint paper is based on the successfully concluded project WeftAlert within the framework of the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations. Further results of the WeftAlert project include the extension of the state of the art of image-based process optimisation of air-jet weaving, excellent outcomes in image processing as well as the validation of image processing systems in laboratory and industrial environments.