Utilizing of Digital Printing Techniques to Create Customize Designs for Textile Floor Covering

Abstract

Industry researchers estimate that the global Textile covering flooring market size was estimated at USD 84.49 billion in 2018 and expected to register a CAGR of 3.2% from 2020 to 2025. Rising demand for carpet tiles on account of availability in a range of colors, patters, and textures is expected to drive the growth. Textile covering flooring manufacturers are involved into production of different products including carpets and area rugs which such as roll goods, carpet tiles, bath mates, and broadlooms among others. Carpet tiles and broadloom are the majorly used Textile covering floorings on account of superior attributes, such as flexibility and dimensional stability. While tufting covering floor about 90% share of this volume, and 7% needle punch covering floor 50% of tufting and needle punch covering floor printed.    While digital printing currently amounts to about 2% share of this volume, digital printing continues to expand with the movement from mass-production to mass customization of printed goods.  Offset/gravure to inkjet/laser printing technology, digital carpet printing offers new creative possibilities for printing over traditional screen-printing. As a result, digital printing enables a shift from printing in large scale manufacturing facilities to smaller cottage businesses focusing on specialty printing Applications. In today’s digital technology age, there is greater demand for better technology and faster turnaround cycles in terms of mass production, mass customization and cost effectiveness for the textile, apparel and printing sectors, and will be in carpet also. (THE FUTURE OF PRINTING @ ITMA 2019). Some reasons for why digital printed is suitable for carpet customize. Short run printing advantage: Digital Textile floor covering printing efficiently produces designs at run lengths as low as one yard of carpet without the need for screen changes. Lower water and power consumption: Digital Textile floor covering printing eliminates the substantial amount of water and electrical energy one requires for rotary screen or chromo jet preparation, printing and cleanup. Even greater water and power savings can be achieved with disperse/sublimation and pigment Digital Textile floor covering inks, which only require a heat-fixation step for post treatment. Less chemical waste: Digital Textile floor covering printing results in significantly less ink usage and waste Relative to screen and chromo jet -printing. Taking into account the additional chemistry and chemical waste from Screen production, printing digitally offers a greener advantage for printing. Large repeat sizes: Digital textile printers can print large designs (e.g. cartoon characters on Runners and Area Rug) on roll wall to wall carpet without the usual rotary screen-printing limitation in pattern repeat size. Reduced production space requirements: By not having to prepare and store customer screens for future use, the production footprint for digital printing is a fraction of the size one requires for a rotary screen print facility. Less printed inventory needed: Digital Textile floor covering printing permits the option to print a design at will. This means that manufacturers with an integrated digital printing system in their production chain can keep a stock of unprinted textiles on hand to print as required. This reduces the need for pre-printed inventory of Textile floor covering that may or may not be used. Sampling and production done on same printer: By being able to print samples (strike-offs) on the same printer one uses for production, digital Textile floor covering print shops can present their customers with proof samples of designs that will exactly match the final printed material. Print flexibility: Printing houses utilizing all-digital, chromo jet and screen technologies can choose to print a small quantity of designs with different color combinations (colorways) first with their digital Textile floor covering printing solutions for test the market. They can later opt to print higher volumes of the most desired color designs using chromo jet or rotary screen technology. Variety of creative design choices for printing: Digital Textile floor covering printing provides the option to print photographic/continuous tone images, spot color pattern designs or a combination of both. This expands the creative printing alternatives for carpet and interior designers. Low capital investment: The relatively low capital investment to setup a digital Textile floor covering print shop, especially compared to rotary screen-printing production, makes it possible to start small and expand as business grows special in scatter rug, bath mat and tiles. The research deals with the following axes: Definition of digital printing and its uses. Comparison between traditional and digital printing methods Conducting many technical experiments of digital printing on different types of textile floor covering. The use of digital printing of textile floor covering in the field of small industries