In joining the ends of a fabric to form a continuous endless fabric such as in making a paper machine forming fabric, it is known to effect the join by removing weft yarns (cross machine direction (CMD) yarns) from each end of the fabric, leaving fringes of warp yarns running in the intended machine direction (MD yarns). The fringed yarns may often be tied in knots of say 30 yarns, or a window 70-160 mm long extending across the entire width of the fabric may be created near each end by removing weft yarns leaving a strip of woven fabric at the very edge of the fabric of up to 80 mm deep and extending across the entire fabric width.

Auxiliary weft yarns are then woven into the fringed warp yarns in a seaming machine to provide an endless fabric which is in effect a single continuous woven entity.

During this seaming operation, a thread separator (see for example US 4,974,300) is used to select warp yarns from the storage bundles in alternating sequence from each side of the shed formed by the auxiliary warp in the seaming machine. The warp yarns are stored either side of the

auxiliary warp in a magazine, storage bundle or woven strip. WO 95/08668 describes one such seaming process.

At present, in order to create the window, or storage bundle, a skilled worker must cut a warp yarn near to the end of the fabric at regular intervals across the width of the fabric and then proceed to remove the weft yarns one by one from the window region. A typical forming fabric may contain 50-80 weft yarns per cm and 10-100 warp yarns per cm so that to form a window or storage bundle can take as long as three days. This task requires skilled labour since care has to be taken not to remove yarns from the fabric with too much force, otherwise distortion of the woven fabric will occur. Simply removing each weft yarn with a single strong pull would make the fabric crease and deform resulting in the need for time consuming repair of the fabric. For this reason the weft yarn has to be cut at several positions across the width of the fabric and removed a section at a time.

This task is repetitive and often results in the worker experiencing frequent strains and injuries and is also demanding on the eyesight.

Mechanical cutting devices have been proposed but they often give poor results as the yarns are difficult to cut, adjacent yarns are easily damaged, cutter blades have to be replaced frequently due to loss of sharpness and cutting only one layer in a multi-layer structure is difficult.

An object of the invention is to provide a device for cutting selected

yarns which will enable the time taken in preparing a fabric for seaming to be significantly reduced, and overcome the shortcomings of bladed cutting devices.

According to the invention a device for cutting selected yarns in an industrial fabric inclues an ablation or excimer laser.

Lasers are known to perforate plastics films or sheets to provide foraminous structures for use as or in papermaking fabrics. Conventional "burn through"lasers have proven to be unsatisfactory for cutting yarns in preparing a fabric for seaming as charred material is deposited in the region where laser cutting has taken place, which contaminates the fabric and gives it a dirty appearance; the laser cannot distinguish between different polymer types and as a result in a fabric woven from say a mixture of polyester and nylon yarns, frequently found in forming fabrics, the laser will either cut the yarn needing less energy input perfectly and cut the yarn needing more energy input less perfectly or it will cut the yarn needing more energy input perfectly and then"over-cut"the yarn needing less energy input, leading to charring and melting of the yarn even where the less energy input yarn is not in direct contact with the laser. The depth of the laser cut cannot be altered so yarns cannot be cut at cross-over points, only straight lines can be cut through yarns and for IR cutting complex optics are required for beam control.

An ablation laser, used in accordance with the invention in a cutting device operates by ablation of the molecular structure of the polymer using high intensity UV radiation to break molecular bonds in the polymer, vaporising the material into radicals. The laser may be an excimer laser, in which the beam requires a gas environment in which the ablate, or a YAG laser, which needs no gas environment, which emits light outside the visible spectrum, usually in the UV range.

This ablation laser does not melt yarns and thus its energy does not have to be adjusted to cut yarns of different polymer types, no char is formed, it will not melt yarns adjacent to the target yarn and the depth of the cut can be controlled. This makes it possible to cut yarns at cross-over points (i. e. knuckles of floats) so that only one yarn at each cross-over point is cut. Apart from the ability to cut fewer warp yarns an advantage of cutting weft yarns at the cross-over point is that the laser can be instructed to follow a cutting pattern determined by the so-called twill line of the fabric, these being clearly visible diagonal lines formed by yarn cross-over points. Furthermore, controlling the depth of laser cut enables multi-layer fabrics to be cut by this method also.

The invention thus preferably includes depth control means for controlling the depth of cut of the laser, and laser path control means for controlling the tracking of path of the laser over the fabric.

Preferably the UV ablation laser means comprise solid state UV laser means and thus do not require corrosive gases to operate, so that they are cheaper to operate than excimer lasers.

The invention also provides a method for joining the ends of a fabric by providing fringed ends or windows, wherein selected yarns i. e. mainly weft yarns and some warp yarns, are cut using a cutting device according to the invention.

In a further step, the overlapped fringed yarns e. g. at opposite ends of a woven papermaking fabric are welded and then the ablation or excimer laser used to restore the weave pattern in the joint region by carving and trimming off areas of excess polymer where the two yarn ends have been joined together.

Another possible use for the cutting device using a depth controllable ablation laser is for flattening yarn cross-over points (or knuckles) in a forming fabric or dryer fabric. Such flattening has previously been carried out by means of calendering as in CA 2,153,846.

The invention accordingly further provides a method of flattening or planarising yarn cross-overs or knuckles in a fabric using a cutting device according to the invention, the device being controlled to ablate the yarns to the depth required to produce a desired surface.

A further possible use of a cutting device using a depth controllable

ablation laser according to the invention is to score the weft yarns of a fabric to reduce edge curl occurring for instance in forming fabrics. This may be carried out by scoring the weft yarn floats with notches which may be up to half the yarn diameter in depth. U. S. Patent No. 5,546,643 describes a mechanical method for doing this, where scoring is effected by the use of a blade.

The ablation laser may be mounted so as to project its beam axially along a vertically or inclinedly mounted probe tube, of, for example, wedge or oval in cross section. The probe may be movable along a set path through the fabric, e. g. following a weft yarn, the shape of the tube acting to move warp yarns out of the way to enable the laser to cut the weft yarn beneath. The tube may be formed with a vertical recess in the trailing side of the probe, down which the beam may be directed.

The invention will now be described by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein :- Fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the operation of the cutting device; and Figs. 2a and 2b are diagrams illustrating a probe for direction of the laser beam.

For use in cutting warp yarns in preparation for seaming of a fabric, such as a papermaker's forming fabric, a detailed image of the operating

area is obtained by an imaging device 10,"Image Acquisition"which optically focuses the image on a matrix of fibre optic ends and the image is transferred via a fibre optic lead 11 to an image processor 12. The digitised image is applied to a device 13 which analyses the image to define the location of the image of a desired yarn ("Fibre Image Positioning") and supplies appropriate information to a control system 14.

Control system 14 uses this information to influence the operation of a slaved cutter positioning device 15, which moves a cutting device 16 as required in accordance with a pre-programmed routine in the control system 14 as updated by precise positional information provided via the image acquisition and analysis system 10,12,13. The system 14 also operates to "fire"the ablation laser in the device 16 when the cutting device is correctly positioned.

Positional information is also used by system 14 to operate a slaved cut fibre extraction device 17 which operates a mechanical fibre extraction system to remove cut yarns from the weave.

In a variation the ablation laser 16 may be operated to ablate cross- overs of threads (or weave knuckles) to a common planar surface.

In a further embodiment the laser 16 may be used to score the knuckles or floats of weft yarns in a fabric such as a paper machine forming fabric, in order to reduce edge curl. The laser 16 is used to form spaced

notches or slots in the yarns to a depth of e. g. 50% of the thickness of the yarn.

The ablation laser used in the device 16 is a fourth harmonic UV laser, the beam having a wave length of up to 320 mm, typically 224-226 mm and a minimum size of 1.0 micron. This beam however may be made larger or smaller by masking techniques. The laser may fire 10 pulses per second. A vacuum or blower system is used to remove ablated molecules in order to avoid deposition of soot etc on the yarns. The ablation laser is typically a harmonic YAG laser, preferably a Q-switched YAG laser used in conjunction with frequency tripling or quadrupling crystals, e. g. a Nd: YAG laser.

The cutting speed is e. g. 1-15 yarns per second, and several lasers can be used in combination in one cutting machine.

The laser cut weft yarns may still be removed by hand, but as they have been cut at regular intervals into small sections they can be removed quickly and easily. All the weft yarns may be removed from a 8 m wide x 10 cm deep strip of standard woven fabric in 8 hours, compared with three days for a standard manual technique.

In either the cutting or planarising process, the laser travels along a pre-selected path, or it can be programmed to follow certain features, such as twill lines. Alternatively it may follow yarns that contain or are coated

with a material to make them stand out, e. g. an optical brightening agent for detection with UV light, metal to be detected by magnetism induction or conductivity or pigments or dyes for colour recognition systems or IR detection.

Figs. 2a and 2b show a probe for use in positioning the laser beam on a target by deflecting yarns to reach a target yarn. The probe 20 comprises an e. g. oval cross section tube, with the narrower side 21 forming a wedge at a leading side of the tube which acts as a deflector to push aside yarns 22, ploughshare-like, to enable the probe to be moved through a fabric and directed at the target yarns. The end of probe 20 is cut at a slant providing a needle-like probe point 23 at the tip of the leading side 21, and a rearwardly directed incline surface 24 which exposes an interior bore 25 of the probe as a channel in the rear of the point 23.

The laser beam 26 is directed axially down the probe tube 20 to impinge on any target which is aligned with the probe.

The cutting machine equipped with one or a plurality of cutting devices according to the invention is equipped with an imaging system which may include a camera which registers a picture of the fabric, then using standard image enhancement and image processing techniques (e. g..

Fast Fourier Transform) a digital map is created, which is used by the laser to follow the cutting path. The digital maps and/or paths for certain weave

structures may be stored on computer disc and loaded into the control system 14 when appropriate.

An image analysis system may be used to compare images of a completely cut fabric region with the actual cut fabric region to alert the machine operator to any discrepancy due to the presence of uncut yarns which should have been cut. The machine may be programmed to automatically cut yarns highlighted by this image comparison system.

A third-harmonic ablation laser may be used in place of the fourth- harmonic laser described in relation to the preferred embodiment. This emits UV-laser energy of longer wavelength i. e. close to the IR region and therefore generates more heat than a fourth-harmonic laser, but it is cheaper to purchase, operate and maintain.

The method and apparatus of the invention may be used in any process involving cutting yarns in a woven textile structure, e. g. base cloths for ENP belts, transfer belts or press felts, dryer fabrics, filter belts, conveyor belts and the like.