Textile production

4.3. Innovations in textile production technologies
Another key driving force in the textile industry has been innovation in manufacturing methods. As with fibres, innovation in technology has historically come from entrepreneurs. It was a barber from the town of Preston in the UK, Richard Arkwright, who patented a machine in 1769 that would take cotton spinning out of the home and into the factory. His water frame was the first textile machine to use water power rather than muscle power. This marked the start of the factory system in the late eighteenth century, which later spread to other industries. With the use of machines and an ‘assembly-line’ approach, it was possible to make an enormous amount of fabric in less time and for less money.7., 8. Notable inventions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries included:
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1733 – Flying shuttle invented by John Kay – an improvement to looms that enabled weavers to weave faster.
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1764 – Spinning jenny invented by James Hargreaves – the first machine to improve upon the spinning wheel (patented in 1770).
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1764 – Water frame invented by Richard Arkwright – the first powered textile machine (patented in 1769).
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1779 – Crompton invented the spinning mule that allowed for greater control over the weaving process.
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1785 – Cartwright patented the power loom. It was improved upon by William Horrocks in 1813. By 1787 cotton goods production had increased tenfold since 1770.
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1790 – Arkwright built the first steam-powered textile factory in Nottingham, England.
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1792 – Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the USA – a machine that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fibres.
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1804 – Joseph Marie Jacquard invented the Jacquard Loom that weaved complex designs. Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards.
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1856 – William Perkin invented the first synthetic dye.
A paper by Matsuo⁹ gives an overview of more recent innovations in technology. Textile machinery is classified under five headings as: (1) fibre manufacturing, (2) spun yarn manufacturing, (3) fabric manufacturing, (4) dyeing and finishing and (5) recycling. Matsuo describes the innovations in high-speed drawing of melt-spun filaments, better monitoring and control mechanisms for false twists zones, followed by descriptions of further innovations in rotor and air-jet spinning. Regarding incremental innovations in woven fabric manufacturing, he describes how the picking rates have increased threefold in air-jet and water-jet systems over the past 30 years, as well as how innovations in multi-phase looms have resulted in significant increases in productivity, lower energy consumption, much lower noise levels and lower production costs. The improvements in weft and warp knitting machinery, innovations in nonwoven spunlacing and needle-punching technologies, electrospinning and ink-jet technology are also described. The latest innovations in fabric manufacturing are in the areas of automated operations, increased quality control, higher production capacities, three-dimensional (3D)-weaving and knitting, 3D-nonwovens, multi-axial warp-knitted fabrics and spacer fabrics as replacements for PU-foams. Particular innovations in spinning are highlighted below, together with developments in coating and lamination and, finally, the manufacture of textile composites.