Published research work concerning weaving machinery and its related technologies in the period between 1990 and 2005 are surveyed in this review. Air-jet looms have been introduced to a lot of weaving mills widely and rapidly in spite of their uncertainness of weft running. Thus researchers concerned with weaving machines have paid a great interest in air-jet weft insertion technology. Developments of measuring devices, photographic technology, control devices, and personal computers brought active research work in the fields of the air jet weft insertion: especially spreads of personal computers have facilitated to solve almost all types of equations of motion. In consequence, numerical simulations for weaving machines have been easily performed including weft insertion, warp tension, mechanism design for loom and so on.

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In order to examine objective evaluation equations for disposable diaper's top sheets, representative top sheets are evaluated by those equations and by subjective method comparing with reusable diaper's fabrics. Following conclusions were obtained. Objective evaluation equation for primary hand (DPCM-1) is useful for calculation of primary hands “NAMERAKASA” and “KOSHI”, however, it is not effective to “SOFUTOSA” and “FUKURAMI”. Two objective evaluation equations for total hand value (THV) (DPCM-2, 3) are both available for top sheets. THV decreased in the order of spunbond, air-through, meltblow, and spunlace for both objective and subjective values. Used fabric for reusable diapers examined here (plain weave) has higher “NAMERAKASA”, “SOFUTOSA”, “FUKURAMI” and THV, however, lower “KOSHI” than the original fabric.

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An investigation of yarn motion in yarn ducts with various cross-sectional shapes and its effects on the characteristics of interlaced yarn is reported. Seven interlacers, which are different in the cross-sectional shape of yarn duct, have the same cross-sectional area. Yarn motion in the yarn duct was observed with 16 sets of optical fibers and photo-sensors. The characteristics of the interlaced yarn were evaluated by both the number and the strength of tangles. The interlacer with a round yarn duct is capable of producing an interlaced yarn with larger number of tangles. This is because it can make yarn run frequently across an air jet issuing from an air jet nozzle. On the other hand, the interlacer with a cornered yarn duct makes yarn subjected to the strong action of a compressed air for a longer time, thus it results in higher strength of tangles.

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Woven fabric consists of two sets of yarn, called the warp and the weft. Warp yarn movements in the process of weaving cloth produce the yarn interlacement pattern. The number of patterns of warp yarn movements and thus the number of possible weave patterns depend on the number of heald frames that the loom is equipped with. If we introduce long-eye healds into a dobby loom, the number of possible weave patterns increases. In this paper, we show that the number of possible weave patterns is roughly doubled when the long-eye healds are introduced.

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Woven fabrics are used in various fields. That reason is the diversity which woven fabrics have. For example, generally woven fabrics are used for our clothing and bedding. Furthermore, woven fabrics are also used as the reinforcement of a composite material, a building component and an aviation component. When designing the structure which uses woven fabrics, we need to understand how woven fabrics are used with structure. Therefore, it is important to predict and understand the situation where woven fabrics are used, and its deformation act. This research proposes the numerical simulation using the finite element method as the technique of grasping the deformation behavior of woven fabrics. The numerical simulation targeted the woven fabrics under multi-axial loading. The experiment showed that woven fabrics with the characteristics of yarn and structure had affected the expression nature in a numerical simulation. Moreover, the expression nature of the deformation behavior of the woven fabrics under multi-axial loading has been improved by setting up a nonlinear Poisson's ratio as change in a cross sectional area to the elongation of yarn.

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