Air-Jet Loom

An air-jet loom is a high-speed weaving machine that propels the weft thread across the loom using a jet of compressed air rather than a mechanical shuttle, allowing it to weave fabric considerably faster than older shuttle looms. Air-jet weaving technology was developed and refined chiefly during the mid-twentieth century by European textile-machinery manufacturers seeking faster alternatives to the traditional shuttle, and the source consulted for this entry names no single inventor or exact origin date, so none is recorded here. Air-jet looms became widely adopted in industrial textile mills from the second half of the twentieth century onward for weaving lighter fabrics at high volume.