About Textile Engineering

The textile industry is in a period of rapid and revolutionary modernization and automation in India. The engineers graduated in Textile Engineering are equipped with the knowledge of the behavior of textile materials and the functions of machinery in textile and clothing technologies.

Textile Engineering deals with the application of scientific and engineering principles to the design and control of all aspects of fiber, textile, and apparel processes, products, and machinery. These include natural and man-made materials, interaction of materials with machines, safety and health, energy conservation, and waste and pollution control. 

Course Duration :

4 years BE/B. Tech

Education Stream:

Science 

Specialization:

It includes subjects like: 

• Textile chemical technology: It deals with the innovative solutions to today and tomorrow's textile wet processing opportunities.
• Fiber science technology: Deals with fiber and polymer research, helps to develops new fibers, and tries to increase the productive capacity 
• Technical textile: Technical textiles are the term given to textile products manufactured for non-aesthetic purposes, where function is the primary criterion. These include textile structures for automotive applications, medical textiles (e.g. implants), geotextiles (reinforcement of embankments), agro textiles (textiles for crop protection), protective clothing (e.g. against heat and radiation for fire fighters clothing, against molten metals for welders, stab protection and bulletproof vests), spacesuits (astronauts) manufactured for non aesthetic purposes, where function is the primary criterion.
• Computer application in textile: This study helps the engineers to design various products with the help of computers. 

What Does a Textile Engineer do?

• A textile engineer works with textile materials: fibers, yarns, fabrics, and finishes.
• Most textile engineer’s work on product research and development, either improving current textile based products or creating new products. 
• They may also be involved with finding uses for new fibers, yarns, fabrics, or textile finishes.

Work Prospects:

• Textile Engineers are generally employed in:
• Departments of textile plants and companies varying from small to big scale dealing in production, planning, quality control, sales or marketing or in agencies of domestic or foreign companies for textile products and textile machinery, concentrated in different regions of the country. 

Scope of Textile Engineering:

Every day the glossy and colorful newspaper supplements proclaim that fashion is big business and the textile trade is booming. What people wear is certainly one part of the huge industry known as textiles, there is a lot more to textile technology than fashion-haute or otherwise. The industry is peopled by many kinds of professionals, with many kinds of skills. The fashion designer is of course the most visible, as are the models who display a designer's products. But behind the designer, whose main tools are pen, paper, fabric and occasionally some computer software, is a large, multilayered enterprise. 

Among the key players are the technologists who create new materials for different needs, design and build equipment and create processes for making these materials. Dr T P Wagle, a professor of textile technology at the Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, notes that in terms of volume, the textile industry is the third largest, worldwide, after tourism and information technology. 

However, the number of textile engineers produced each year does not reflect the size of the industry. "Textile engineering offers decidedly more opportunities to graduates than most other engineering disciplines," says Dr Wagle. "Right now India accounts for only three per cent of the world's textile exports...our textile export activity can easily multiply by five times," he adds. Increased production of course implies increased opportunities for those trained in this field. 

While the handloom textile sector plays an important role in the Indian economy, there is a growing need for better materials and production processes in the mechanized sector too. Better fire resistant materials for uniforms, for instance, or absorbent fabric for medical use, or weather resistant packaging materials - these are the challenges that make textile engineering an exciting field, beyond the narrow confines of fashion. 

Textile engineering is concerned with the application of scientific principles and engineering practices to the wide-ranging aspects of textile processes, products and machinery, including synthetic fibers, interactions of fibres and fabrics with nature and with other mechanisms (such as conditions of use and storage), safety and health, pollution control and energy management. 

Design engineering looks at how to turn a paper design into a manufactured product, while quality engineering is concerned with monitoring processes to ensure product quality. As in other branches of engineering, students in this field study the basic physical sciences and mathematics, but with a larger focus chemistry than perhaps in other areas. The increased emphasis on producing ecologically friendly materials and using sustainable means of production challenge today's engineers to come up with creative materials and creative ways of producing them. 

It is also possible to combine an interest in textiles with information science or robotics and focus one's attention on issues such as production systems or plant safety. Perhaps the most challenging and interesting areas in textile engineering are those that deal with research and development in new materials. 

Textile technologists work closely with chemical engineers to develop new materials for a variety of purposes - packaging materials that can keep food fresh longer, or fire-proof upholstery for vehicles, lighter or warmer fabric for space travel, better bandages for internal and external use...in our complex world, the needs keep increasing, calling for more and more ingenuity. 

Textile engineering has received relatively less attention from young people entering technical colleges - it lacks the gloss of some of the other fields, although the opportunities it presents are perhaps similar. As in any branch of applied science, the scope of opportunity lies in the way you look at the field, and what you choose to do with the knowledge you gain. 

The usual route to enter the field is by obtaining a B.Tech or B.E. in textile engineering. An engineering graduate obviously has the edge in the recruitment process, but students who have a diploma in textile technology or fashion technology also are in demand on the technical side, although they tend to start at lower salary levels. For most technical positions, a bachelor's degree is sufficient, but if one wants to move up in research and development, a master's is important. It also helps to combine technical and aesthetic skills.