China is one of the first countries that produced textiles in the world. It has designed and developed a variety of equipment to facilitate textile work, for instance, reeling wheels for fiber processing, treadle spinning wheels for spinning, and looms for weaving cloth. These textile mechanisms can be found in the literature, and there are physical objects left as well. However, due to unclear descriptions of the transmission modes in the records and illustrations, as well as the long history and vast area of their use, a variety of designs with different structures may have been produced. Based on the generalized kinematic chain concept, this paper briefly describes the historical development of textile mechanisms in ancient China and analyzes the structures of mechanisms, such as reeling wheels, treadle spinning wheels, and looms. Finally, it explores the degree of freedom of the mechanisms to find feasible designs in line with functional requirements.
The ancient China textile industry had a long history of development with many important mechanical creations. It is a miniature of the development of ancient Chinese civilization. Industrial textile mainly consists of four steps: fiber processing, spinning, dyeing and finishing, and weaving. Fiber processing involves processing the silkworm cocoon, cotton, or hemp by reeling off raw silk (seeding) or rubbing and twisting strands to prepare them for spinning. After fiber processing, spinning converts the raw materials into yarns or produces the folded yarn by joining and twisting multiple single yarns. Then, the yarn is treated with warp and weft yarn fiber processing as preparation for weaving. Dyeing and finishing of the textile is achieved by chemical or physical methods that can dye the yarn while increasing its strength. Weaving interweaves the warp and weft yarn – processed with dyeing and finishing – in a perpendicular blending manner through the weaving device to make cloth.
There is extensive ancient Chinese technical literature containing mechanism
illustrations, such as
The production of textiles in China dates back to several thousand years ago. As early as in primitive society, people had already started to collect wild hemp and natural silk and utilizing the hair and feathers of hunted animals. They wove simple clothes to replace grass and animal skins to cover themselves. In the latter period of primitive society, with the development of agriculture and livestock farming, people gradually grasped the artificial production of textile raw materials, such as extracting fiber from hemp, keeping sheep to get wool, and breeding silkworms for silk. In addition, they also began to use more tools, which greatly increased their productivity. From then on, decorative patterns and colors started to appear on textiles. However, all the tools – for example, the spinning wheel and spindle stick used for spinning – were driven directly by human hands; hence, this technique is called primitive hand spinning and weaving.
Approximately 3000 years ago, textile production made a great leap in both quantity and quality. After a long time of development, the textile tools had evolved into primitive manual textile machineries, such as cotton gin for fiber processing and a hand spinning wheel for spinning, as shown in Fig. 1. Furthermore, textile producers gradually became specialized, consequently promoting the development of textile technology. Textiles became the objects of transactions, and in some cases they even played the role of currency as a medium for exchange. By the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period (770–221 BCE), silk fabrics were already exquisite. With various textures and rich colors, silk textile became a noble clothing fabric well-known far and wide. Below the stages from the beginnings to the formation of manual mechanized spinning and weaving are outlined.
Cotton gin and hand spinning wheel.
From the Qin and the Han dynasties (221 BCE–220 CE) to the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912 CE), natural silk was famous in the world as a specialty of China. During this period, the structure of manual textile machinery had become more complex to make looming and weaving more efficient and to produce better-quality textile. For example, the spinning wheels developed from single-spindle hand spinning wheels into multi-spindle (three to five spindles for each set) treadle spinning wheels, and the looms had developed into two major types, the plain and patterned looms. The textiles also had a variety of patterns and colors. The major fabric weaves known today, such as plain, twill, and satin weaves, were all widely used in the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE). Silk fabric remained a high-end product as a clothing material, and arts and crafts silk textiles also appeared mainly for appreciation. During the Yuan and the Ming dynasties (1206–1636 CE), cotton spinning and weaving technology developed rapidly, and materials for daily clothing gradually changed from hemp to cotton cloth – the development period of manual mechanized spinning and weaving.
Textile machinery comprises members and joints in specific ways to realize the desired movement functions. In analyzing the structure of textile machinery, the generalized chain can be used to represent the movement relations between members and joints (Shi et al., 2020, 2017; Dong et al., 2020). According to the number of joints they are connected to, members can be categorized as a single member, binary member, ternary member, and quaternary member, and joints are represented with circles, as shown in Fig. 2 (Yan and Kuo, 2006; Hsiao, 2017, 2018).
Expression by chains.
The cotton gin, shown in Fig. 1a, is used for cotton fiber processing before looming and weaving. The treadle is stepped on to produce reciprocating motions, rotating the roller via the rope. Meanwhile, one hand rotates another roller; hence, the two rollers rotate in opposite directions. Using the empty hand to add cotton between the rollers, one can squeeze the cotton core and cotton seed at a higher efficiency. Stepping on the treadle to drive the roller via a rope requires a flywheel, which can force the roller to rotate with inertia force (the flywheel is not illustrated in the figure).
The cotton gin can be divided into two mechanisms: the manual roller and the
treadle-rope transmission. The manual roller mechanism has two members and
one joint. With a wooden frame as the frame (member 1,
Figure 1b shows a single-spindle hand spinning wheel found on a wall
painting of a Han Dynasty tomb. It includes the frame (member 1,
The chains of the cotton gin and hand spinning wheel.
Various textile mechanisms were invented and used in ancient China. They utilized a variety of different mechanical members, such as link, pulley, and flexible parts, and generated manifold motion characteristics through the motion transmission between these members. Though these mechanisms have been documented and physical objects have been recovered, there are still multiple possible designs for their mechanical structures. Therefore, we describe the purpose and components of the reeling wheel, the treadle spinning wheel, and the loom, analyze their structures, and discuss their feasible designs.
The reeling wheel is used to extract and reel natural silk fibers. The
earliest records of a reeling wheel appeared in the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE).
Early reeling wheels were operated with two hands and required two people to
work together to get silks out. By the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE) at the latest, reeling wheels operated by feet appeared and only one person could use their hands and feet to complete the work (Zhang et al., 2004). Figure 4 shows
the original illustration in
Reeling wheel (Wang, 1969).
The treadle connecting link mechanism consists of at least the frame (member
1,
The silk thread guiding mechanism consists of the frame (member 1,
According to the analysis above, both the treadle
connecting link mechanism and the silk thread guiding mechanism are planar
mechanisms that can realize the required function. The corresponding chain
of the reeling wheel is shown in Fig. 5a. According to the
Grübler–Kutzbach criteria, which determine the degree of freedom of a planar
mechanism (Yan, 2016), and considering the uncertain joints As the number of isolated entries for this mechanism is 1 and no special
concern is involved, the degree of freedom of the mechanism is 1. The expression for the degree of freedom of a planar mechanism is shown
in Eq. (1): The number of members in this three-member circuit, According to Eq. (2),
The chains and simulation drawings of a reeling wheel.
In the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), spinning wheels were operated by hands
and were widely used (Zhang et al., 2004). However, the spinner turned the
wheel with one hand and pulled the yarn with the other hand, which often
resulted in uneven yarn thickness. The treadle spinning wheel uses the
operator's feet as the power source. The feet rather than the hands control
the treadle to drive the great wheel. With both hands, spinning can be more
efficient, and the quality of the yarn is enhanced, as shown in Fig. 6
(Song et al., 1966; Hommel, 1937). It combines one or several threads of natural
silk, cotton thread, or hemp fiber into a new thread through rubbing and
twisting and collects the yarn roll for the spinning spindle on the spindle.
Figure 6a shows that a spinner steps on the treadle to drive the great
wheel in order to drive the two spindles to rotate simultaneously via the
rope on the great wheel, making four single yarns into a two-fold yarn wound
on the spindle through twisting. Its basic structure consists of the frame
(member 1,
Treadle spinning wheel.
In this mechanism, the treadle (
According to the above analysis, the operator needs to control the treadle
with two feet to drive the great wheel to rotate. Therefore, the treadle
spinning wheel must be a spatial mechanism to meet the functional
requirements. According to the Grübler–Kutzbach criteria, which determine the degree of freedom of a spatial mechanism, and considering the uncertain
joints As this mechanism uses two feet to control the treadle, the degree of
freedom of the mechanism can be 1 or 2. The expression for the degree of freedom of spatial mechanism is shown in
Eq. (4): The number of members, According to Eq. (5), it can be obtained as follows:
Chains and simulation drawings of treadle spinning wheel (Hsiao and Yan, 2014).
According to unearthed textile relics, primitive looms appeared at the latest 5000 years ago. The structure of the primitive loom is simple and has no frame. The weaver uses the waist and legs to control the plane of the warp and complete the work of weaving. The primitive loom was still in use until 100 CE in ancient China. Around 1000 BCE, the frame, the heddles, and the heddle rods were added to the loom, giving it the complete weaving function (Zhang et al., 2004). The loom drives the transmission rope and the connecting link via the treadle, opening the shuttle path and facilitating the weaving process. It is a typical design of ancient Chinese weaving mechanisms, as shown in Fig. 8 (Song et al., 1966; Hommel, 1937). The weaving processes include the four steps, namely opening the shuttle path, weft insertion, weft pressing, and cloth rolling. It also includes three sub-mechanisms, namely the treadle heddle-lifting mechanism, the weft-pressing mechanism, and the cloth-rolling mechanism, required to produce plain-weave cloth (Hsiao and Yan, 2014). Figure 8c shows the structure of a dual-treadle, dual-heddle loom. One end of the warp is wound on the warp beam, and the other goes through the eye hole of the heddle. The heddle consists of an upper heddle rod, a lower heddle rod, and the eye holes of the heddle. The weaver steps on the treadle to drive the thread and the scale link. Consequently, the heddle moves up or down through the treadle heddle-lifting mechanism. When the heddle lifts or drops, it also raises or drops the warp, and the shuttle path is then provided. The weft is placed inside the shuttle, and for easier shuttle-picking through the shuttle path opening, both ends of the shuttle are pointy, as shown in Fig. 8d. When the shuttle is picked, the weft falls on the warp. After every shuttle picking, a weft-pressing rod of the weft-pressing mechanism must be used to firmly press the weft, making it part of the woven cloth. As the weaving process goes on, the newly woven cloth is wound on the cloth beam, and the warp needs to be released from the warp beam simultaneously.
The loom.
According to their functions and applications, the loom can be divided into three sub-mechanisms, namely the treadle heddle-lifting mechanism, the weft-pressing mechanism, and the cloth-rolling mechanism, described in the following.
The quality of weaving is directly related to the opening and closing of the
shuttle path, and the treadle heddle-lifting mechanism is a major
component of controlling the shuttle path. It consists of six members: the
frame, two treadles, two threads, and a scale link. In this mechanism,
Treadle 1 (member 2,
Chain and simulation drawing of treadle heddle-lifting mechanism.
In order to make a compact structure of the textile, a weft-pressing rod
must be used after each shuttle process to press the weft firmly. The
mechanism, shown in Fig. 8a, uses bamboo as the flexible element to return
the weft-pressing rod to its original place. Such a weft-pressing mechanism is
a four-member mechanism and consists of the frame (member 1,
Chains and simulation drawing of the weft-pressing mechanism.
In order to keep the tension of the warp on the loom and collect the cloth
after the weft and the warp blends, the cloth-rolling mechanism is adopted.
It consists of the frame (member 1,
Chains and simulation drawing of the cloth-rolling mechanism.
The complex textile mechanisms of ancient China consist of connecting links, pulleys, and flexible transmission parts. A variety of motion characteristics is achieved through the interactions between the parts for textile works, including fiber processing, spinning, and weaving. In this paper, the concept of the generalized chain is used to perform structural analyses on three complex textile mechanisms, including the reeling wheel, the treadle spinning wheel, and the loom. The innovation of this paper and the difference to related studies is that this paper applied the criterion for the degrees of freedom to raise feasible design configurations for each textile mechanism. It provides a sketch for people to comprehend the characteristics of ancient Chinese textile mechanisms. As an effective tool, this method can reasonably deduce mechanical structure designs in accordance with motion characteristics and functional requirements. From the perspective of modern mechanical science, this method of the topological matrix not only clearly shows the structural changes in the textile mechanisms, but it is also an important aspect in the restoration of other ancient machinery.
The data are available upon request from the corresponding author.
SWL and KS directed the structural analysis of the textile mechanisms. MJW structured the paper. YAY made contributions to presentation approaches for the textile mechanisms.
The contact author has declared that none of the authors has any competing interests.
Publisher’s note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
The authors are grateful to the Shandong University of Science and Technology under grant 0104060540416 for the financial support of this work.
This research has been supported by the Elite Program of Shandong University of Science and Technology (grant no. 0104060540416).
This paper was edited by Guimin Chen and reviewed by two anonymous referees.