Flow Chart of Fabric Welding Process

Welding:

Welding is an alternative method of fabric join. It is a process in garments manufacturing that involves the sealing together of thermoplastic materials without applying heat externally as infusing. The seam produced by welding or adhesive can bear load or tension but these seams also have some disadvantages e.g. flexibility, extensibility, stretch, and recovery power is very low. Their use is limited but very important where they are used. Flow Chart of Fabric Welding Process is as follows:

Flow Chart of Fabric Welding Process

Heat applied to the fabric
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Melting of thermoplastic materials
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Applying pressure on melted material
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Creation of bonding
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Cooling
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Fabric joined

Welding is one of the most common ways to join thermoplastic-coated materials used in the technical textile industry. Fabric welding is straightforward, relatively inexpensive, and offers unparalleled flexibility and strength when it comes to joining technical fabrics together. While not all types of fabrics can be easily welded, virtually all thermoplastics exhibit excellent weldability.

Most common types of Fabric welding:

1. High Frequency: HF welding, known as radio-frequency or dielectric welding. Here, fuses materials together by applying a rapidly alternating electric field to the joint area. The electromagnetic field is normally applied between two metallic fabric at often at 27.12 MHz.
2. Hot Air: Hot air welders generate the heat required for fabric welding by blowing compressed air across electrical heat elements. The temperature of the resulting hot air can range from 400-750 °C. The hot air is then injected at the welding point. Thus melting the surface of the thermoplastic fabric. And allowing it to be joined to another thermoplastic sheet. A set of rollers is typically used to apply pressure to the materials to join them at the weld.
3. Hot Wedge: Hot wedge welding uses a heated metal wedge precisely positioned at the weld point to provide the required heat. Two sheets of fabric or film are pulled across the heated wedge, then subjected to pressure from rollers to form the weld. The highly controlled temperature of the wedge can range from 370ºC to 490ºC.