Online Friction Measurement and Wear-Life Determination for Textile Needle Hooks Based on Closed-Loop Tension Control...

Area of Science:

• Textile Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• Textile needle hooks are critical components in looms, susceptible to wear that impacts fabric quality and machine uptime.
• Current methods for assessing needle wear are often offline, subjective, and lack real-time feedback.
• Predictive maintenance for needle hooks is essential for optimizing loom operation and preventing unexpected failures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an online method for real-time wear monitoring and lifetime assessment of textile needle hooks.
• To establish a reliable index for wear evolution based on yarn tension dynamics.
• To enable data-driven, timely replacement of needle hooks in industrial looms.

Main Methods:

• Real-time measurement of yarn tensions on both sides of the yarn-needle wrap interface.
• Estimation of an equivalent friction coefficient as a wear monitoring index using the capstan model.
• Implementation of closed-loop average-tension control to stabilize operating conditions.
• Application of a robust signal-processing pipeline including gating, clipping, filtering, and outlier rejection.
• Wear-life determination using a baseline-referenced criterion combining a relative threshold and persistence time.

Main Results:

• The proposed method provides stable yarn-tension measurements and reliable friction coefficient estimation.
• Clear discrimination among different needle hook wear states was achieved.
• Wear-life assessments demonstrated consistency with offline microscopy observations.
• The method proved computationally lightweight and suitable for practical online implementation.

Conclusions:

• The developed online wear monitoring and lifetime assessment method is effective for textile needle hooks.
• The system enables accurate prediction of needle hook wear and facilitates data-driven maintenance scheduling.
• This approach enhances loom efficiency and reduces operational costs through optimized needle replacement timing.