**1. Introduction**

32 Woven Fabrics

An attempt has been made to optimize engineering attributes of plain and non-plain weave fabrics as per requirement. Soft computing is used to solve fabric geometrical model equations and relationships between useful fabric parameters such as thread spacing and crimp, fabric cover and crimp, warp and weft cover are obtained. Such relationships help in guiding the direction for moderating fabric parameters. The full potential of Peirce fabric geometrical model for plain weave has been exploited by soft computing and the same is extended for non-plain constructions. The inter-relationships between different fabric parameters for jammed structures, non jammed structures and special case in which cross threads are straight are obtained using suitable computing techniques. It is hoped that the fabric designer will be benefited by the flexibility to choose fabric parameters for achieving any end use with desired fabric properties. This information is helpful to the weavers in avoiding attempts to weave impossible constructions thus saving time and money. It also helps to anticipate difficulty of weaving and take necessary steps in warp preparations. The relationship between the cover factors in warp and weft direction is demonstrated for circular and racetrack cross-section for plain, twill, basket and satin weave. Non plain weave fabric affords further flexibility for increasing fabric mass and fabric cover. As such they

Soft computing can successfully provide a platform to manoeuvre crimp in warp and weft over a wide range with only three fabric parameters; yarn tex, modular length of warp and modular length of weft yarn. This has enabled solutions by interaction of crimp interchange and crimp balance equations. This exercise offers several solutions for fabric engineering by

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Nirwan, S. and Sachdev, S. (2001). B. Tech. Thesis, *I.I.T. Delhi*  Peirce, F. T. (1937). *Journal of the Textile Institute*, 28, T45-112.

Singhal and Choudhury (2008). B. Tech. Thesis, I.I.T. Delhi.

**5. Conclusion** 

enlarge scope of the fabric designer.

varying the above three parameters.

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**6. References** 

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Nowadays, the enterprises all over the world are approaching toward globalizing in design and production in order to be more sustainable. Integration of interior divisions in a company or cooperation among different companies worldwide is of great importance to the competence enhancement for entrepreneurs. There have been a variety of developed applications to integrating different divisions (Cao et al., 2011) (Yamamoto et al., 2010). Moreover, the range of R&D cycle for textiles is much narrowed than ever. It is necessary for an enterprise to afford the demand of marketing change in small quantity and large variety for the commodity. Thus, it is crucial for textile manufacturer to integrate the design and production processes.

Generally speaking, at the very beginning a piece of fabric appeals to a consumer by its appearance, which is related to the weave structure and the colors of warp and weft yarns. Next, the characteristics, e.g., the permeability, the thickness, the tenacity, the elongation et al. of the fabric are required. Finally, the price of the fabric is used as an evaluation basis, by comparing which to the above-mentioned items (i.e., the outlook and the characteristics), the value of the fabric can thus be defined and determined. If the value is satisfactory, the fabric will be accepted by the consumer. Otherwise, it will become a slow-moving-item commodity.

It is essential for the fabric with good quality to be of appropriate weaving density except being equipped with satisfactory pattern. If the weaving density is too less, the fabric will seem obviously too sparse to have good enough strength. The more weight consumption of the material yarns is, the higher cost needed for the manufacturing of a piece of fabric is. Thus, it is a crucial issue for a designer to make a good balance between the cost and the essential consumption of the material yarns during woven fabric manufacturing.

Woven fabric is manufactured through the interlacing between the warp and weft yarn. The pattern of the woven fabric is illustrated through the layout of the different colors of the warp and weft yarn. Therefore, the application of computer-aided design (CAD) (Dan, 2011) (Wang et al., 2011) (Liu et al., 2011) (Gerdemeli et al., 2011) (Mazzetti et al., 2011) to simulated woven-fabric appearance and to the other aspects has been a major interesting research in recent years and various hardware and software systems are now available on the market for widely commercial applications. Until these systems became available, a considerable amount of time and money had been needed to show designers' ideas of fabric

An Integration of Design and Production for Woven Fabrics Using Genetic Algorithm 35

Once the pattern design is determined, the characteristics (e.g., the thickness, the permeability et al.) need to be set for the next. Another Search system based on GA is developed for acquire weaving parameters as well. With this system, a fabric designer can efficiently determine

With GA-based design and production system, a fabric designer can efficiently determine the warp (or weft) yarn color, weave structure and the required weaving parameters (e.g., yarn count N1, N2, and weaving density n1, n2 of warp and weft yarn) for manufacturing satisfactory fabric. Thus, the design and production divisions can be integrated together. The running out of creative inspiration for a designer can be eliminated. The system can provide several appropriate combination sets of layout parameters which can meet a designer's satisfaction on the appearing pattern of the fabric and the demand of weaving parameters which can produce the fabric on expected material cost without lab manufacturing in advance. The construction of the integrated system for design and

As shown in Figure 1, the system consists of two major components, i.e., the search mechanisms for weaving parameter and weave structure, and the user interface. Each of

weaving parameters to help manufacture the fabrics of required characteristics.

**2. Framework of integrated system for design and production** 

production is described as follows.

them is described briefly as follows.

Fig. 1. Scheme of integrated system

design in pattern (fabric sample) form. Probably only 15-20% of the patterns produced would have been approved for production by the sales department or the customers or both. Thus design can be a very expensive exercise for manufacturers engaged in the fancy woven fabric market. The introduction of CAD to textiles has provided a major breakthrough in multicolor weave design. With the help of CAD, designers can display, examine, and modify ideas very quickly on the color monitor before producing any real fabrics. Thus CAD allows a greater scope for free creative work on the part of designers without incurring a large cost increase. CAD allows a greater flexibility in the designer's work, and the designer's creativity is more effectively used.

A designer can do a weave structure design by using his/her inspiration. However, for a designer it can happen to run out of his/her creativity for pattern design from time to time. Though the CAD is becoming more and more applicable to the pattern design (Hu, 2009) (Zhang et al., 2010) (Penava et al.,2009) it has not yet become a complete tool to the textile designer because of limits to the function of color and material yarn selecting that can be created automatically. Up to the present, designers have got to be satisfied with a limited function of their own chosen color and material yarn recently available to display the simulation of the fabrics.

There are huge amount of researches on the weave structure of woven fabric. Griswold (Griswold, 2011) proposed algorithms on using Boolean operations in weave pattern design. Rasmussen (Rasmussen, 2008) discusses the theory of binary representation of fabric structures and the possibilities of weave category in order to design families of weave patterns. Rao et al. (Rao et al., 2009) developed 3-D geometric models for the morphological construction of fabrics with the unit-cells of four harness, five harness, and eight harness. Shinohara et al. (Shinohara et al., 2008) proposed a novel automatic weave diagram construction method from yarn positional data of woven fabric. Ozdemir et al. (Ozdemir et al., 2007) developed a method to obtain computer simulations of woven fabric structures based on photographs taken from actual yarns along their lengths. On the other hand, weave pattern design will benefit from some theoretical studies on binary matrices, e.g., pattern mining techniques from binary data. Ma et al. (Ma et al., 2011) proposed an encoding algorithm to reveal the hidden information in the binary matrix of a weave pattern so as to obtain a solution to determine features of the weave pattern. It enables the possibility to quickly produce required weave geometries and weave textures at different levels of detail.

In order to go beyond the simulation function of a conventional CAD system, a design system, which can generate a variety of patterns for a designer to evaluate each of them and scoring them by preference, is of great value to be created and developed. Such a system is developed by using genetic algorithm in this study. Genetic algorithm (GA) is powerful and broadly applicable stochastic search and optimization techniques based on principles from evolution theory. GA has widely been applied in varieties of fields, e.g., CAD/CAM integration (Ahmad et al., 2011), electromechanical product design (Yang et al., 2011), Process planning (Salehi et al., 2009), information management optimization (Wei et al., 2009), and manufacturing cycle cost finding (Deiab et al., 2007). Through the assistance of the GA-developed system in this study, a fabric designer can proceed with the design process of weave structure more flexibly and effectively. With the help of GA-based CAD, a satisfactory creative pattern, which is of a specific weave structure with certain colors of warp and weft yarn, can be obtained.

design in pattern (fabric sample) form. Probably only 15-20% of the patterns produced would have been approved for production by the sales department or the customers or both. Thus design can be a very expensive exercise for manufacturers engaged in the fancy woven fabric market. The introduction of CAD to textiles has provided a major breakthrough in multicolor weave design. With the help of CAD, designers can display, examine, and modify ideas very quickly on the color monitor before producing any real fabrics. Thus CAD allows a greater scope for free creative work on the part of designers without incurring a large cost increase. CAD allows a greater flexibility in the designer's

A designer can do a weave structure design by using his/her inspiration. However, for a designer it can happen to run out of his/her creativity for pattern design from time to time. Though the CAD is becoming more and more applicable to the pattern design (Hu, 2009) (Zhang et al., 2010) (Penava et al.,2009) it has not yet become a complete tool to the textile designer because of limits to the function of color and material yarn selecting that can be created automatically. Up to the present, designers have got to be satisfied with a limited function of their own chosen color and material yarn recently available to display the

There are huge amount of researches on the weave structure of woven fabric. Griswold (Griswold, 2011) proposed algorithms on using Boolean operations in weave pattern design. Rasmussen (Rasmussen, 2008) discusses the theory of binary representation of fabric structures and the possibilities of weave category in order to design families of weave patterns. Rao et al. (Rao et al., 2009) developed 3-D geometric models for the morphological construction of fabrics with the unit-cells of four harness, five harness, and eight harness. Shinohara et al. (Shinohara et al., 2008) proposed a novel automatic weave diagram construction method from yarn positional data of woven fabric. Ozdemir et al. (Ozdemir et al., 2007) developed a method to obtain computer simulations of woven fabric structures based on photographs taken from actual yarns along their lengths. On the other hand, weave pattern design will benefit from some theoretical studies on binary matrices, e.g., pattern mining techniques from binary data. Ma et al. (Ma et al., 2011) proposed an encoding algorithm to reveal the hidden information in the binary matrix of a weave pattern so as to obtain a solution to determine features of the weave pattern. It enables the possibility to quickly produce

In order to go beyond the simulation function of a conventional CAD system, a design system, which can generate a variety of patterns for a designer to evaluate each of them and scoring them by preference, is of great value to be created and developed. Such a system is developed by using genetic algorithm in this study. Genetic algorithm (GA) is powerful and broadly applicable stochastic search and optimization techniques based on principles from evolution theory. GA has widely been applied in varieties of fields, e.g., CAD/CAM integration (Ahmad et al., 2011), electromechanical product design (Yang et al., 2011), Process planning (Salehi et al., 2009), information management optimization (Wei et al., 2009), and manufacturing cycle cost finding (Deiab et al., 2007). Through the assistance of the GA-developed system in this study, a fabric designer can proceed with the design process of weave structure more flexibly and effectively. With the help of GA-based CAD, a satisfactory creative pattern, which is of a specific weave structure with certain colors of

required weave geometries and weave textures at different levels of detail.

work, and the designer's creativity is more effectively used.

simulation of the fabrics.

warp and weft yarn, can be obtained.

Once the pattern design is determined, the characteristics (e.g., the thickness, the permeability et al.) need to be set for the next. Another Search system based on GA is developed for acquire weaving parameters as well. With this system, a fabric designer can efficiently determine weaving parameters to help manufacture the fabrics of required characteristics.

With GA-based design and production system, a fabric designer can efficiently determine the warp (or weft) yarn color, weave structure and the required weaving parameters (e.g., yarn count N1, N2, and weaving density n1, n2 of warp and weft yarn) for manufacturing satisfactory fabric. Thus, the design and production divisions can be integrated together. The running out of creative inspiration for a designer can be eliminated. The system can provide several appropriate combination sets of layout parameters which can meet a designer's satisfaction on the appearing pattern of the fabric and the demand of weaving parameters which can produce the fabric on expected material cost without lab manufacturing in advance. The construction of the integrated system for design and production is described as follows.
