Welding isn’t just for aircraft carriers anymore.
The U.S. Navy could be turning to ultrasonic welding to make its uniforms lighter, stronger, and cheaper. And if the project by a Rhode Island company and the Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility is a success, it could help bring manufacturing back from overseas.
Welded seams — created when two pieces of fabric are essentially melted together by sound waves — are already used in some clothing that some Americans have in their closets. Patagonia and North Face both sell models of jackets with welded seams. But so far, most, if not all, of that manufacturing is done overseas.
Propel LLC is trying to figure out how to make one of the Navy’s more expensive and challenging garments to assemble — the Navy parka, which it buys for $190.50 each — without stitches. It has spent the past year testing welded seams, adhesive techniques, and other bonds using a federal grant from the Navy.
“This was a good way for us to start to get an understanding of what the current state of the art is,” said Cleveland Heath, the technical program manager at the Navy facility in Natick, Massachusetts.
