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A test method and instrumentation have been developed to facilitate the identification of potential appearance problems and for the development of improved fabric pressing performance. The method determines the fabric pressing performance with a greater degree of certainty than using a steam press. The weft “pressing performance” crease angle, as measured by the test method developed by CSIRO, in cooperation with IWS (Biella Technical Centre) and the Italian industries, combined with warp formability, as measured by SIROFAST, were found to be the two fabric properties most important for the prediction of the acceptability and appearance of a range of high quality men’s suits. It also appears that a good pressing performance can partly compensate for the seam pucker symptoms of low formability.

A simple measurement of fabric pressing performance as indicated by crease angle has been developed and applied to the prediction of appearance of wool and wool blend tailored jackets. Industrial and laboratory trials have measured by the FAST system to give an assessment of garment appearance of lightweight fabrics after they are pressed.

Describes the FAST system, developed by CSIRO for quality control and assurance of fabrics. FAST, or Fabric Assurance by Simple Testing, consists of a series of instruments and test methods which are inexpensive, robust and simple to use. It measures properties which are closely related to the ease of garment making‐up and the durability of worsted finishing. FAST‐1 gives a direct reading of fabric thickness over a range of loads with micrometre resolution. FAST‐2 measures the fabric bending length and its bending rigidity. FAST‐3 measures fabric extensibility at low loads as well as its shear rigidity. FAST‐4 is a quick test for measuring fabric dimensional stability, including both the relaxation shrinkage and the hygral expansion.

The purpose of this paper is to model tension seam pucker by finite‐element method.

A linear three dimensional finite‐element analysis in ABAQUS 6.8 is used to model pucker formation under sewing thread tension. Fabric is modeled as a continuous shell under a constant stitch length and sewing thread tensions is the applied force. Simulation's results are compared with the experimental pucker profiles, which are derived by a triangulate laser, in the term of a surface roughness index.

A consistent correlation between simulation and experimental results is observed which reveals the ability of the model to predict the seam pucker formation of fabrics.

This study modeled tension seam pucker based on fabric's mechanical properties and exerted forces by finite‐element method. According to this study, it is possible to predict fabric deformation after tension pucker occurrence.

The recognition and positioning of start welding position (SWP) is the first step and one of the key technologies to realize autonomous robot welding. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method developed to accomplish successful autonomous detection and guiding of SWP.

The images of workpieces are snapped by charge coupled device (CCD) cameras in a relative large range without additional light. The recognized methods of SWP are analyzed according to the given definition. A two‐step method named “coarse‐to‐fine” is proposed to recognize the SWP accurately. The first step is to solve the curve functions of seam and workpieces boundaries by fitting. The intersection point is regarded as initial value of SWP. The second step is to establish a small window that takes the initial value of SWP as centre. Then, the SWP is obtained exactly by corner detection in the window. Both the abundant information of original image and the structured information of recognized image are used according to given rules, which takes full advantage of the image information and improves the recognized precision.

The detected results show that the actual and calculated positions by first step of SWP are identical for regular seam, but different for the irregular curve seam. The exact results can be calculated by the two‐step method in the paper for both regular and irregular seams. The typical planar “S‐shape” and spatial arc curved seams are selected to carry out autonomous guiding of SWP.

The experimental results are given based on the introduction of 3D reconstructed and guided method. The guided precision is less than 1.1 mm, which meets the requirements of practical production. The proposed two‐step method recognizes the SWP rapidly and exactly from coarse to fine.

IN recent years several interesting and excellent papers have been read before various Societies, dealing with magnesium and its alloys.

Sewing thread plays an important role in transforming a two-dimensional fabric into three-dimensional garment. Over the years, ring spinning has been dominating the yarn market because of its consistent performance. Eli-Twist spinning system, a new method of yarn manufacture, provides a product with improved mechanical and physical properties than the conventional ring-spun yarn. It is the process of producing a two-ply compact yarn with improved fibre utilisation. The purpose of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using Eli-Twist yarn as a sewing thread and to compare its performance with conventional thread.

In this study, regular polyester and Indian cotton were used to produce the Eli-Twist and conventional TFO thread. Three different blends (100 per cent polyester, 50/50 polyester/cotton [P/C] and 100 per cent cotton) were taken to produce three different counts (39.4 tex, 29.5 tex and 23.6 tex) from each composition. The hairiness, tenacity, breaking elongation and coefficient of yarn-to-metal friction of threads were tested and a comparative analysis was made. The seam performance of all the threads was judged by seam strength, seam efficiency and seam elongation.

The results show that the mass irregularity and imperfections are more or less similar for both types of threads. Eli-Twist sewing thread has shown less friction, less hairiness and higher tensile strength. The Eli-Twist sewing thread was found to be better than the conventional two-ply sewing thread. The seam performance parameters, such as seam strength, seam efficiency and seam elongation of the Eli-Twist thread showed significantly improved performance.

The main concern of this study is delineating the performance of the Eli-Twist sewing thread. No study in this regard has been reported so far. The improved physical and mechanical behaviour of the Eli-Twist yarn has prompted to assess its performance as sewing thread.

This paper aims to propose using polylactic acid (PLA) as an alternative to nanocomposites in additive manufacturing processes in fusion deposition modelling (FDM) systems and describe its thermal and rheological conditions with multi-wall carbon nanotube (PLA/MWCNT) and halloysite nanotube (PLA/HNT) composites for possible applications in additive manufacturing processes.

PLA/MWCNTs and PLA/HNTs were obtained through fusion in a co-rotating twin-screw extruder. PLA was mixed with different percentages of MWCNTs and HNTs at concentrations of 0.5 Wt.%, 0.75 Wt.% and 1 Wt.%. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and capillary rheometry were used to characterise these products, together with an analysis of the melt flow index (MFI).

The DSC data revealed that the nanocomposites had a glass transition temperature T_g = 65 ± 2°C and a melting temperature T_m = 169 ± 1°C. The crystallisation temperature of PLA/MWCNTs and PLA/HNTs was between 107 ± 2°C and 129°C, respectively. The viscosity data of PLA/MWCNTs and PLA/HNTs obtained by capillary rheometry indicated that the viscosity of the materials is the same as that of neat PLA. These results were confirmed by the higher fluidity index in the MFI analysis.

This paper presents an alternative for the applications of nanocomposites in additive manufacturing processes in FDM systems.

A robot welding line for heating boilers, working to a cycle time of less than five minutes, has been developed by Cloos for a German manufacturer.

Describes the use of welding robots for making bridge panels. The system uses a total of 14 sets of High Speed Rotating Arc welding robots and newly‐developed arc sensor techniques are used with both joint end and bead end sensors. A teaching‐less direct CADCAM system was developed to control the robots. The welding robot system is now in commercial operation with welding efficiencies that are twice those possible with conventional processes.