Picanol auf der Techtextil in Frankfurt

PICANOL AT TECHTEXTIL FAIR IN FRANKFURT

Picanol will present its weaving machines and services for weavers of technical textiles at the specialised Techtextil fair in Frankfurt, Germany, from 8 to 10 April 2003. In the segment of tire cord (fabric used for reinforcing automobile tires), Picanol is already the worldwide market leader. And this is the position that Picanol also wants to attain with the Technical Textiles BU in other technical fabric segments.

Enormous growth potential
Currently, Picanol?s Technical Textiles BU is its smallest business unit. Given the number of industrial sectors and the possibilities for applications in which technical textiles play an increasingly important role, this BU?s growth potential is enormous. Sectors such as the automotive industry, construction, the agricultural industry and the medical sector form major markets. Some fabrics, such as those used for making protective clothing, find application in many different sectors.

Tirecord
Tirecord is used to reinforce the tires of vehicles. Some 10 m2 of tirecord fabric goes into each car. Picanol is the worldwide leader on the market of weaving systems for tirecord. Its OMNIplus-TC is specially designed for weaving tirecord. This machine, based on the OMNIplus airjet machine, is built by Picanol´s Günne division. The system includes the batching motion for tirecord, specially designed for distortion-free rolls of open tirecord fabrics up to 4000 kg.

Selvedges in tirecord fabrics need to be perfect in shape to ensure flawless further processing of the fabric rolls. To achieve this, Picanol has adapted its high-speed mechanical tucker system to weave tirecord. Only this system produces the sought-after semi-circular tucked selvedges.

Airbag
Airbag is a heavy denier nylon fabric for personal protection in various forms of transportation. About 5 m2 of airbag fabric goes into the average car. The importance of airbags is due to increase greatly in the near future, in view of new safety trends.

Picanol offers two technologies for producing such fabric, namely airjet and rapier. The OMNIplus airjet weaving machine is an absolute winner for production of normal-density sized warps. The new GamMax rapier machine equipped with free-flight rapiers is recommended for normal to heavy density sized and unsized warps.

The OMNIplus and GamMax machines have a number of shared features that make them highly suitable for producing airbag fabric. Both offer very high speeds, while the heavy fabric constructions are supported by an easing motion and double backrest rollers. This makes it possible to beat up the weft in a more gentle way, using less warp tension. At the cloth fell, the Picanol full-width temple not only makes it possible to weave heavier constructions, but also helps to keep the pick line as straight as possible.

Seat fabric
Seat fabric is used to cover seats in the transport industry (cars, trains, airplanes etc.). In the automotive industry, about 5 m2 of seating fabric goes into each car. Here also, Picanol offers both airjet and rapier technologies.

The OMNIplus airjet weaving machine can be fitted with cam motion, dobby or Jacquard for weaving seat fabrics. Weft yarns with different insertion characteristics require very different settings. Sometimes it is even necessary to change the speed of the machine in order to weave certain yarns. Optispeed is an on-board algorithm that allows the weaver to program the optimum speed for each yarn according to the weave pattern. All the settings are automatically adapted within one cycle of the machine. In this way, the machine performs at the maximum speed for each yarn and not at a speed dictated by the slowest weft yarn in the pattern.

Also Picanol?s new GamMax rapier weaving machine can be equipped with a cam motion, dobby or Jacquard for weaving car seat materials. The grippers are of the free flight type. These grippers have no guide hooks, which means that no metal parts come in contact with the bulky warp yarns.

Two features in particular are very useful for producing car seat fabrics, namely ERGO and PFT. When greatly differing yarns are used or if the weft yarn is not regularly bound into the fabric, uneven waste lengths can occur at the right-hand side of the machine. With ERGO (programmable gripper opener), the gripper opener is adjusted for each pick, so that the waste yarns all have the same width, resulting in raw material savings and improved quality. PFT or programmable filling tensioner is used to reduce the peak tensions in the weft yarn during insertion and to secure the yarn transfer in the grippers.
Glass-fibre:
The newest generation of flexible rapier-machines GamMax is also designed to be a front-runner in the segment of industrial glass-fibre-fabrics. A small shed-opening is absolutely necessary for the processing of non-elastic glass-fibre yarns. A small shed is obtained thanks to the use of low-profiled Free-Flight grippers, equipped with specially adapted clamping-parts for light-weight as well as heavy-weight glass-fibres.
When it comes to speed, the GamMax is running close to speeds of airjets in single as well as in double width , but with much less energy-consumption. GamMax is also available in Leno-weave execution for glass, with or without warp-creel.

Aramides: ( Kevlar - Twaron )
Picanol is also launching the new GamMax rapier-machine in the market-segment of protective fabrics and more specifically the segment of ballistic protection. Aramide-fibres are the fibres of choice in this application-field.
Having very light-weight low-profiled Free-Flight rapiers running through a small shed is already a guarantee for low defect-levels related to fibre-distortion. The clamping-parts of the rapiers are arranged to insert all common types of multi-filament-aramide yarns. Cloth-take-up and scissors are specially adapted to deal with aramide-fabrics.

Picanol (www.picanol.be) has played a pioneering role as a developer and manufacturer of high-performance weaving systems for more than half a century. Picanol was the first to introduce electronic control on its weaving machines, in 1971, and was the first weaving machine manufacturer to obtain ISO 9001 certification. The company became listed on the Brussels Stock Exchange - now Euronext - in 1968. Due to the take-overs of Verbrugge NV and of the textile department of the American Steel Heddle Inc., Picanol now also occupies an important position in the market for textile machinery accessories. In doing so, Picanol is making its first step as a supplier of total solutions for the textile industry. In addition to its headquarters in Ypres, Belgium, Picanol has various sites in the USA, Asia and Europe. Some 2600 weaving mills around the world use Picanol machines. Picanol produces some 6000 weaving machines annually. Its consolidated turnover in 2001 amounted to EUR 402.6 million. The company currently employs approx. 2175 people worldwide. Last year Picanol has been elected ?Vlaams Wereldspeler? (Flemish global player), awarded to a Flemish company characterized by an extensive international growth strategy.

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Contact:
Erwin Devloo
Marketing Communication Manager
Picanol N.V
Ieper / Belgium
Tel. +32-57-22 20 90
Fax +32-57-22 21 31
E-mail: edv@picanol.be