Textile Industry

Thin Plastic Film Welding

Depending on the application, very thin films and membranes can be prefabricated with an automatic welding machine, processed on site or even welded with laser.

Large, head-high fabric tunnels as well as protective films for asparagus and strawberries are used both in professional agriculture and in hobby gardens. They protect plants from weeds, pests and storms. They are also used to optimize the harvest. Such fabric tunnels and protective films are usually welded by hand with automatic welding machines. For more complex welding seam shapes, however, lasers are used.

Fabric tunnel

Vegetables and fruit are grown well protected from wind and weather in a fabric tunnel. Such temporary greenhouses consist of metal arched struts covered with fabric.

The metal struts are anchored in the floor and then covered with a thin, transparent plastic film. This variant can be found both in the hobby gardener and in professional vegetable cultivation and has many advantages: Harvest protection, especially against bad weather (e.g. heavy rain, hail and snow), earlier harvesting compared to field crops, optimisation of harvesting, protection against pests as well as better use of beneficial organisms, which is an important issue especially in organic farming.

Welding membranes with laser

Films can also be welded very well with laser. If the films have different optical properties, the principle of laser transmission welding is applied.

If both films are transparent, i.e. natural, thin films can also be welded using the through-heating process. Here the laser penetrates both welding partners (in this case two transparent plastic films) and hits an absorbing surface which heats up. This melts the films from bottom to top and welds them together. Very complex welding structures are possible due to the local energy input, which can be individually programmed.