As the textile industry accelerates its transformation toward high-end and diversified development in 2026, water-jet and air-jet looms, the two mainstream shuttleless weaving machines, have achieved large-scale applications in key fabrics such as imitated silk, chiffon, Oxford cloth, geotextile, and electronic-grade glass fiber cloth through technological iteration. They have built a full-scenario intelligent manufacturing system covering apparel, home textiles, and industrial fabrics, becoming a core driver for enhancing the competitiveness of domestic textile equipment.
Water-jet Looms: Efficient Tools for Chemical Fiber & Industrial Fabrics
As core equipment for chemical filament weaving, water-jet looms use water as the weft insertion medium and show outstanding technical advantages in processing hydrophobic fabrics. Featuring a high-rigidity frame design coupled with a precision beating-up system, they can stably operate at a high speed of 1,100–1,200 rpm with a weft insertion rate of up to 2,280 m/min. In the production of lightweight fabrics such as imitated silk and chiffon, they effectively control weft tension to ensure smooth and delicate fabric surfaces.
In the field of industrial fabrics, the special adaptability of water-jet looms is particularly prominent. For the high-strength and high-modulus requirements of geotextiles, the equipment adopts an optimized six-link beating-up structure to stably weave polyester filament fabrics weighing more than 800g/㎡, meeting stringent standards for roadbed reinforcement and anti-seepage engineering. In electronic-grade glass fiber cloth production, water-jet looms feature low vibration and low static electricity, combined with multi-nozzle precise weft insertion technology, enabling stable weft insertion of ultra-fine yarn bundles at the 0.1mm level, providing core fabric support for high-end fields such as 5G communications and new energy battery separators.
Currently, water-jet looms are accelerating upgrading toward energy conservation and intelligence. Retrofit with direct-drive motors can reduce power consumption by 20%–25%, and intelligent electronic control systems realize real-time adaptive adjustment of rotation speed and tension, greatly lowering production energy consumption and labor costs.
Air-jet Looms: High-Speed & High-Efficiency for Multi-Material Wide-Width Production
Air-jet looms use compressed air as the weft insertion power. With advantages of high speed and high adaptability, they have become “all-round equipment” for fabric weaving in various fields. With a maximum rotation speed of 1,400 rpm and a weft insertion rate of 1,400–2,280 m/min, their efficiency is over 50% higher than traditional equipment in the production of medium-heavy fabrics such as Oxford cloth and home textile fabrics, significantly shortening delivery cycles.
Aiming at multi-material composite demands, the air flow control system of air-jet looms has been continuously optimized to precisely adapt to the blending or interweaving processes of cotton, polyester, glass fiber and other fibers. In apparel fabrics, they stably produce lightweight and breathable fabrics such as chiffon and imitated silk, with fabric defect rates controlled below 0.5%, meeting the quality requirements of high-end fashion. In industrial fabrics, through special shedding devices and strong-twist weft control technology, they efficiently manufacture functional fabrics such as glass fiber mesh cloth and high-temperature resistant filter cloth, providing key material support for construction, environmental protection, automotive and other industries.
Intelligent upgrading has further expanded the application boundaries of air-jet looms. Machine vision inspection systems enable real-time identification of fabric defects, and AI algorithms optimize air flow parameters, dynamically adjusting weft insertion strategies according to fabric materials to realize flexible production of “small batches and multiple varieties”, adapting to both fast fashion and high-end customization demands.