Warping Process:

We know that woven fabric is made by two sets of yarn; warp and weft. Warp
yarns run with along the length of fabric and weft yarns go across the width of the
fabric. Warping is the preparation of yarn to weave fabric. It is the transfer of
many yarns from the creel of single packages to a beam. The yarns will form a
parallel sheet of yarn wound onto the beam. The basic objective of warping is to
built a package where yarn ends remain in uniformly set parallel & continuous
form & there by to accelerate the next process either sizing or drawing-in.

Objective of warping

The objective of warping process is to convert the yarn packages into a warper’s beam having desired width and
containing requisite number of ends. Uniform tension is maintained on individual yarns during warping.
The yarns are would on the warper’s beam in the form of a sheet composed of parallel bands of yarns each
coming out from a package placed on the creel. A simplified view of the warping process is shown in Figure 3.1.
Figure 3.1: Simplified representation of warping process

Let us take the following hypothetical example to understand the various options of warping process.
A woven fabric roll of 2 m width and 10,000 m length is to be produced from warp yarn of 15 tex. There should
be 40 yarns per cm in the fabric. The total number of ends in the fabric will be 40×200 = 8,000. Considering
that 10 beams will be combined in sizing, the number of ends on each warper’s beam will be 800. Ignoring the
yarn crimp and wastage of yarns, the mass of a single end having 10,000 m length will be 150 g. Therefore,
there will be the following options:
P × R indicates the number of packages used × number of warping runs
 800 × 1: Each cone should contain 10,000 m yarn, weighing 150 g.
 400 × 2: Each cone should contain 20,000 m yarn, weighing 300 g
 200 × 4: Each cone should contain 40,000 m yarn, weighing 600 g
 100 × 8: Each cone should contain 80,000 m yarn, weighing 1200 g
 50 × 16: Each cone should contain 160,000 m yarn, weighing 2400 g

Now, option 1 and option 2 represent two extreme situations. Option 1 (direct warping or beam warping) can be
executed when the lot being processed is having significantly higher (15-20 times) length than that of the fabric
considered (10,000 m) in this example. Considering the mass of a full cone as 2.1 kg, if the ordered length is
140,000 m, then the entire cone (150 × 14 = 2100 g) will be consumed.
On the other hand, option 2 (sectional warping or indirect warping) is practiced when fancy warp patterns or
specialized yarns are used for manufacturing customized products. In this case, the production planning officer
does not see the possibility of repeat order in near future. Therefore, he or she wants to consume the entire
package to minimize the wastage and inventory carrying cost. Therefore, the beam is made by section by
section and the operation is repeated large number of times to complete the entire width of the warper’s beam.
This is also followed by the beaming operation when all the sections of warp are transferred to a flanged beam.
In synthetic filament weaving systems, each supply package contains a very high length of yarn. Such packages
are therefore fairly expensive. It is also very difficult to store such packages with unspent yarn. Hence synthetic
yarn weaving units prefer to opt for sectional warping.
For direct warping the typical length of lot can be as follows:
 40s count: 1.65 lakhs m
  50s count: 1.80 lakhs m
 60s count: 1.9 lakhs m

Components of Warping Machine

 Creel (Figure 3.2)
 Headstock
 Control devices

Types of Creel
 Single end creel
 Magazine creel
 Traveling or multiple package creel

Figure 3.2: A simple creel of warping machine

Single End Creel

In single end creel, one position of the creel is used for one end on the warper’s beam. Single end creel can be
of two types namely truck creels and duplicated creels. The creel is movable in case of the former whereas the
headstock is movable in case of the latter. In case of truck creel, when the packages from the running creel are
exhausted, it is moved sideways and the reserve creel moves into the vacant space (Figure 3.3). Thus, the
time for removing huge number of exhausted package and replenishing them with full packages is saved.
However, extra space is required for the reserve creel.
Figure 3.3: Single end truck creel

Magazine Creel
In magazine creel, the tail end of yarn from one cone is tied with the tip of the yarn of another neighbouring
cone. When the first cone is exhausted, the transfer of yarn withdrawal to the second cone takes place
automatically and machine does not stop. This has been depicted in Figure 3.4. Thus the creeling time is
completely eliminated which helps to improve the running efficiency of warping process. However, due to
sudden change in unwinding position and tension variation associated with this, some of the yarns break during
the transfer (known as transfer failure). The magazine creel has reduced capacity. If the creel has 1000 package
holders, then the warp sheet can actually have 500 ends.

Figure 3.4: Magazine creel

Travelling or Swivelling Creel

In swivelling creel, the pegs (package holders) with full packages can move from inside (reserve) position to the
outside (working) position when the running packages are exhausted. Thus considerable time is saved. Then the
operator replaces the exhausted packages with full packages when the machine is running. Figure 3.5 shows
the swivelling creel.

Figure 3.5: Swivelling creel

The flow chart of the warping process can be represented as shown in Figure 3.8.

Figure 3.8: Sequence of warping process

Leasing: It is asystem by which the position of the ends is maintained in the warp sheet. Generally it is done by
dividing the ends in two groups (odd and even). If odd ends are passing over the lease rods then the even ends will
pass below the rod. The relative positions of the ends will reverse in case of second lease rod.
Expandable reed: It is used to control the spacing between consecutive ends. The two limbs of V shaped
expandable reed can be expanded or collapsed as per the required spacing of ends. Figure 3.9 shows the expandable
reed and lease rods in a sectional warping machine.
Beaming system: In the beaming process, all the sections are simultaneously transferred to the flanged warper’s
beam (Figure 3.10). The drum is rotated by the tension of warp sheet whereas positive drives are given to the
warper’s beam. The speed of beaming process in sectional warping is quite slow (around 300 m/min).
Figure 3.9: Expandable reed and lease rods

Figure 3.10: Sectional warping drum and beam

Table 3.1: Comparison between beam warping and sectional warping

Beam warping Sectional warping
Used for high volume production
One step process
High creel capacity is required
Comparatively less expensive
Beaming speed is high
More common
Used for small volume and customised
production (stripes and specialised yarns)
Two step process
Low creel capacity is sufficient
Comparatively more expensive
Beaming speed is low
Less common