Air Jet Weaving

[asalisbury]

Hi All,

I am attempting to make an air jet weaving nozzle, having never done so before, and need some help with the air jet design for weaving fibers with a rectangular cross section. I have a few pictures below for what I am currently working with. My trials so far have not worked mostly due to high friction on the fiber in its chamber - I am printing another nozzle with a larger chamber to accommodate this.

The fiber chamber has a rectangular cross section, and I have four 1/4" air inlets that I connect to shop air at ~40psi. The air accelerates through a throat and creates a vacuum around the fiber exit causing it to move forward. I need to keep the fiber in a rectangular cross section to maintain its stiffness for weaving.

Any notes or help on this would be appreciated!

 

[LittleInch]

Well that's a pretty brutal end to the airflow around the fibre nozzle for one thing so expect a huge amount of turbulence.

What exactly is your problem though?

why do you need to shoot this fibre out along with a high velocity air jet?

Can't rollers work better?

What is the fibre shooting towards?

A bigger picture of the whole thing you're building usually helps.

 

[EdStainless]

Let me guess, your build layers are in the x-y plane.
If so what have you done to polish the interior after making it?
All of those little ripples will cause terrible flow.
Toyota solved this 50 years ago.
Is none of that info in the public domain?