Karl Mayer’s says its RSE 4-1 is definitely the fastest four-bar raschel machine in the world, and will soon have even more accolades heaped upon it. The machine will be re-launched in April 2010 as the most reliable machine in its series and will set new speed standards and operate with a high degree of accuracy, completely independently of climatic conditions.

The RSE 4-1’s speed has been increased by integrating innovative carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) components into the machine construction, which has been specially adapted to handle these components. Karl Mayer says this is a technological quantum leap forward, which has already enabled some of the other high-speed warp knitting machines produced by the company to be operated extremely successfully by the company’s clients.

The RSE 4-1 is the first raschel machine to be equipped with the CFRP components. All the bars on the machine for processing stretch fabrics have been manufactured from the lightweight, stable material. The entire machine, from the needles to the basic machine design, has been modified to cope with the resulting increase in speed.

The changes that have been made to the needles have focused on increasing the resistance to lateral distortion, whereas aspects of the basic machine design were optimised specifically in terms of the machine dynamics. The modifications that were made to improve the stability, both of the bars as well as the basic machine, were made by carrying out detailed and extensive calculations using tried-and-tested procedures, such as the finite element method and multi-body simulation systems. Karl Mayer says nothing was left to chance and this can be seen quite clearly from the results of these technical improvements.

The weight of the CFRP bars has been decreased by as much as 25% compared with the conventional type, whilst the rigidity has been increased. This has opened up more scope for setting the maximum achievable speed. Above all, however, the use of CFRP materials results in exceptional temperature stability during production. The temperature window for problem-free machine running has been extended from +/- 2°C to +/- 7°C. Extending this tolerance range has minimised any loss in efficiency caused by having to adjust the needle tool as a function of the climatic conditions, or to reduce the speed following a machine stoppage. The result is that the machine availability of the RSE 4-1 is higher than ever before, which has increased the total overall performance of this high-tech production machine.