The effects of fabric characteristics on industrial sewing needle temperature

Sewing is the fundamental process of the garment production process. During the process of sewing, sewing needle heating caused by sewing needle’s friction against the surface of the textile. In this article, properties of the fabric that affect the sewing needle temperature of an industrial lockstitch machine in the sewing process were examined. Fabric characteristics like fabric finish, fabric density, fabric thickness is selected as input parameters. Full factorial experimental design (constructed using Design Expert 12) is used to evaluate the effects of the selected input parameters on the response. ‘K’ type thermocouple was used in the implementation to measure the temperature on the sewing needle. It is observed that the thickness of the fabric is the most important factor for the needle temperature followed by fabric finish and density of the fabric.