A jacquard is a fabric has a design or motif woven into the construction of the weave. Jacquards come in an array of designs, from dramatic ornamental damasks, to florals, stripes, chevrons, or geometric patterns. Jacquards are woven on a special and complex loom which operates by lifting and lowering yarns to determine the arrangement of warp and weft yarns creating the desired pattern or effect.
Plain weave and jacquard
Plain weave is woven with basic tissues that can produce simple stripes, such as twill, or patterns using a tie-and-dye process, but still has only one tissue structure of its own.
Jacquard, on the other hand, is a combination of various tissues according to the needs of the pattern design, such as satin ground + plain pattern, satin ground + twill pattern, or even 1/2 twill ground + 2/1 twill pattern.
The three basic tissues are plain, twill, satin, also known as the three original organization:
▲Blue is the warp tissue point, yellow is the weft tissue point
Tissue point: At the intersection of warp and weft yarns, it is the tissue point. The warp yarn floating on the weft yarn is called the warp tissue point, and the weft yarn floating on the warp yarn is called the weft tissue point.
Tissue cycle: When the law of floating and sinking of warp and weft tissue points reaches a cycle, it becomes a tissue cycle. So, in the above diagram, the red box is a tissue cycle.
▲The red box is a tissue loop
Plain organization: s basic tissue in which the warp and weft tissue points alternate in a 1:1 ratio, and the tissue made by interweaving the warp and weft yarns one above the other is called plain tissue.
Twill organization: adjacent warp (weft) yarns on the continuous warp (weft) tissue points arranged into a diagonal, the fabric surface presents a continuous diagonal weave fabric organization.
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This enlarged picture above, we can clearly see that it is two different directions of the twill formed the different effect, so the fabric has patterns.
Satin organization: refers to the warp (or weft) floating line is long, interweaving point is less, they form a diagonal line, but not continuous, this fabric structure form is called satin organization. Because of the long floating line, which will generate strong luster than plain and twill.
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Weft with long floating threads are called weft satin, while warp with long floating threads are called warp satin. The effect of showing patterns can be achieved by combining weft satin and warp satin.
▲Jacquard fabric, Tang dynasty(618 AD - 907 AD), China
The Jacquard weaving machine has a device that can lift and lower the yarn, and is a weaving machine that makes silk fabric woven with patterns, which first appeared in China. According to historical records, during the Western Han Dynasty(202 BC - 8AD), A textile craftsman was able to master the technique of operating the jacquard machine, and her machine was equipped with 120 warp threads, which could weave a floral cloth in 60 days on average.
However, weaving patterns with the jacquard machines of the time was quite laborious. All silk fabrics were woven with warp threads and weft threads. To weave a pattern, weavers had to carefully follow a pre-designed pattern, "lifting" part of the warp at the right place so that the shuttle could pull the weft threads of different colors through. Of course, the machine cannot "think" of its own where to lift the threads, it has to rely on the hands to "lift" one warp after another, and repeat this operation tirelessly.
▲Extremely complex jacquard weaving machine requiring two people to operate
In 1725, B. Bouchon, a French textile mechanic, came up with the brilliant idea of "perforated paper tape". Bouchon first managed to use a row of knitting needles to control the movement of all the warp threads, and then took a roll of paper tape, punched a row of small holes according to the pattern, and pressed it on the knitting needles. After starting the machine, the knitting needles facing the small holes could go through and hook up the warp threads, while the other needles were blocked by the paper tape. In this way, the knitting needles automatically select the warp threads according to the pre-designed pattern.
The real success came 80 years later, when another French mechanic, J. Jacquard, completed the design of the "Automatic Jacquard Weaving Machine" in about 1805. Jacquard added a device to his jacquard machine, able to manipulate 1200 knitting needles at the same time, the perforated paper tape to control the pattern was later replaced with perforated card. 1812, only in France has been assembled more than 10,000 units, and through England spread to the Western world, For this, Jacquard was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor and the Gold Medal, and his name became the name of the jacquard technology.
▲Jacquard machine elevation. The perforated card is dangling on the left side.
The Jacquard machine was invented thanks to the technical contribution of three Frenchmen in the 18th century, Basile Bouchon, who had already tried to control the loom with perforated paper tape in 1725, and his assistants Jacques de Vaucanson and Jean-Baptiste Falcon, who continued to develop the technique. Their idea of automation and the use of perforated paper tape and cards to store information were the technical prototypes of the Jacquard machine, and they were only one step away from success.
▲Jacquard and Zhuang hua silk fabric, Ming Dynasty(1368 - 1644), China
▲Jacquard and Brocade fabric, Rococo period(the 18th century), French
The Jacquard technique invented by the ancients is a graphic information storage technology, like a computer program, when viewed from today's perspective. The most recent of these is the Jacquard machine of the early nineteenth century, which controlled the perforated paper cards used in Jacquard and led directly to the birth of the computer.
So this digital age that we enjoy today has its roots in the jacquard machines of the ancients. And because of this origin, weaving has taken the digital path more justifiably than any other technology, and now CNC digital weaving is on the rise.
▲Moderate electronic Jacquard machine
CNC(computer number control), is the core link of automation and a variety of digital manufacturing technology (digital fabrication). Digital knitting no longer need you to consider how to gracefully make jacquard movements as the ancients did. The job is left to the most familiar computers of our time and is solved by simple specialized software. Jacquard machines have been virtualized and digitized.
▲Jacquard head protected by aluminum beam
With the disruptive patented positioning technique of the electronic Jacquard machine, the Jacquard head can now be flexibly positioned anywhere on the width of the reed without tools. This revolutionary design provides textile mills with precise, high-speed weaving and minimal downtime when changing designs and fabric widths and dramatically increases productivity.
A new generation of controllers, designed to meet the demands of the digital future The new intelligent electronic architecture ensures accurate and error-free data transmission during weaving.
▲Modern Jacquard fabrics
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