Spinning Technology – I [TE-2101]

Reference books:
1. The textile institute manual of textile technology, vol-1~6, W. Klein
2. Manual of short staple spinning, Mohammed Farhad Mahmud Chowdhury

Flow chart of carded yarn production:

Input Machine Output
Bale Blow Room Card mat
Card mat Carding Card sliver
Card sliver Breaker draw frame Drawn sliver
Drawn sliver Finisher draw frame Drawn sliver
Drawn sliver Simplex Roving
Roving Ring Yarn

Flow chart of combed yarn production:

Input Machine Output

Bale Blow Room Card mat
Card mat Carding Card sliver
Card sliver Breaker draw frame Drawn sliver
Drawn sliver Lap former Lap
Lap Comber Combed sliver
Combed sliver Finisher draw frame Drawn sliver
Drawn sliver Simplex Roving
Roving Ring Yarn

Cotton producing countries:

1. India
2. China
3. United states
4. Pakistan
5. Brazil
6. Australia
7. Mali
8. CIS (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan etc.)
Bale: A large bundle or package prepared for shipping, storage, or sale, especially
one tightly compressed and secured by wires, hoops, cords, or the like, and
sometimes having a wrapping or covering.

No. of fibers in a cotton bale:

Staple length: 30 mm = 1.18 inch
Fiber weight: 4 µg/inch
Bale weight: 200 kg = 200×109 µg
Now,
Wt. of 1 inch fiber is 4 µg
Wt. of 1.18 inch fiber is 4.72 µg
200×109
So, no. of fibers in the bale = = 4.23×1010
4.72

Bale management:
Testing, sorting & mixing bales according to properties of fiber for producing
specific good quality yarn at minimum cost is called Bale Management.
Properties of cotton fibers considered by cotton spinners:
1. Fiber fineness: fineness is one of the most important fiber characteristics. The
fineness determines how many fibers are present in the cross section of a yarn.
30 fibers are needed at the minimum in the yarn cross section but there are
usually over 100. 100 is approximately the lower limit for almost all new
spinning process. Fiber fineness is measured in Micronaire value (MIC). The
higher the micronaire value of fiber the coarser the fiber.
 Rating of MIC value-
MIC Description
Less than 3.0 Very fine
3.0~3.6 Fine
3.7~4.7 Medium
4.8~5.4 Coarse
5.5 to above Very coarse
Fiber fineness influences the number of fibers in the cross section of yarn.
The finer the fiber the higher the number of fibers in yarn cross section.

** Calculate the no. of fibers present in the cross section of a 30 Ne yarn

produced from 4 Mic fiber.

2. Maturity: The maturity of cotton is defined in terms of the development of

cell wall. A fully mature fiber has a well-developed thick cell wall. On the
other hand, an immature fiber has a very thin cell wall.

R−IFC
Maturity Index = + 0.7 (where, R= Mature fiber content (%)
200
IFC= Immature fiber content (%)

Immature fiber leads to :

- Nepping
- Loss of yarn strength
- Varying dye ability
- High proportion of short fibers
3. Fiber length: The average length of spin-able fiber is called staple length. The
quality, count, strength etc. depend on the staple length of fiber. Normally the
higher the staple length of fiber the higher the yarn quality.
 Staple length Category
1” or less Short staple
1 1 Medium staple
132” to 18”
5 3 Long staple
132” to 18”
13 Extra-long staple
132” and above

4. Fiber strength: The higher the fiber strength the higher the yarn and fabric
strength. Very weak cottons tend to rupture during processing both in blow
room and carding, creating short fibers and consequently deteriorate yarn
strength and uniformity. Minimum strength for a textile fiber is approximately
6 CN/tex.
Some significant breaking strength of fibers are:
Polyester : 35~60 CN/tex
Cotton : 15~40 CN/tex
Wool : 12~18 CN/tex
5. Fiber cleanness: In addition to usable fibers, cotton stock contain foreign
matter of various kinds:
Vegetable matter- Husk portions, seed fragments, stem fragments, leaf
fragments wood fragments.
Mineral material- sand, dust, coal.
Other foreign matters- metal fragments cloth fragments, packing materials.

Accepted the range of foreign materials to the bale:

Up to 1.2% - Very clean
1.2% to 2.0% - clean
2.0% to 4.0% - Medium
4.0% to 7.0% - Dirty
7.0% to above - very dirty
According to the international committee for cotton testing methods the
following types are to be distinguished:
Trash - above 500 µm
Dust - (50~500) µm
Micro dust - (15~50) µm
Breathable - below 15 µm
 6. Fiber color: color is particularly important as a measure of how well a yarn
or fabric will dye or bleach. Instrumental techniques for determining the color
of the sample have only now reached the industry, HVI measurement of color
provides reasonably accurate results of average reflectance and yellowness in
a sample.
7. Fiber elongation: Elongation is specified as a percentage of the starting
length. The greater crease-resistance of wool compared with cotton arises
for example from the difference in their elongations, cotton-6~10%, wool

length
uniformity strength
18% 25%

length
12%

fineness
14%

others
elongation
20%
trash 5%
6%

25~45%.
Contribution of fiber properties to yarn quality.
All these properties are measured by HVI.
Functions of HVI: HVI means High Volume Instrument. This is a fiber testing
instrument. It measures fiber strength, length, length, uniformity, elongation,
micronaire, color and trash etc.
Mixing and Blending
Mixing: If different grade of same fibers are kept together, then it is called mixing.
Example: 50% of 4 Mic cotton + 50% of 5 Mic cotton.
Blending: When different fibers of same or different grades are kept together, then
it is called blending.
Example: PC, CVC. (Polyester- cotton blend).
Objects of mixing and blending:
 1. To achieve uniform quality
2. To improve processing performance
3. To reduce and control of production cost
4. To meet function and end used requirement
5. Aesthetic, (fashion, texture, luster).
6. To give the required characteristics to the end product.
Blow Room
Blow room consists a number of machines used on succession to open and clean the
cotton fiber. Since the tuft size of cotton becomes smaller and smaller, the required
intensities of processing necessitates different machine configuration.

Different blow room lines

Rieter Trutzschler conventional
Unifloc BDT Automatic bale opener
Metal & fire detector SP-EM Automatic blender
Uniclean CL-P Step cleaner
Unimix MX-U Axi flow
Uniflex CL-C3 Porcupine opener
Loptex SP-FP Hopper feeder
Scatcher machine

Functions of blow room:

1. Opening the compressed bales of fibers and making the cotton tuft a small
size as far as possible
2. Detecting and removing the metals present in the fiber
3. Cleaning the fiber by removing the dirt, dust, broken seeds, broken leafs
4. Mixing & blending of different classes or grades of fibers
5. Detecting and removing foreign fibers, plastic contamination
 6. Uniform feeding to the carding machine.
Opening: Opening is the breaking up of the fiber mass into tuft. The raw materials
enter the spinning mill in highly pressed form to enable optimum transport and
storage conditions to be used. Thus opening must precede the basic operations.

Types of opening:
1. Opening to flocks: in the blow room line.
2. Opening to fibers: in the carding machine.

Working principle of BDT: In this zone, basic function is to open the fiber from
the bale where fibers are at very compressed and disoriented state. The opening
device has to penetrate into the bale and pick up the tuft of fiber during releasing
from different bales simultaneously. The size of fiber package is converted from 200
kg to 10 gm/tuft in this zone. The machine moves to cover maximum bales.
Generally roller with toothed disc is used for opening device. No beating action but
picking is performed here.
As shown in figure, rotating opening rollers fitted with toothed discs are made to
traverse a line of preassembled cotton bales, the toothed discs plucking tufts from
each bale as they move from bale to bale. The toothed discs give a gentle opening to
prevent or minimize the fiber breakage while producing smaller tuft sizes at higher
production rates than the mixing bale opener.
Technical data:
- Traverse speed : 10~18 m/min
- Speed of take-off roller : 1400~1800 rpm
- Nominal take–off depth : 2.5~3.5 mm
Working principle of CL-P: In this zone, basic function is to open the fiber tuft to
smaller size and to clean the tuft removing big size of trash but smaller size of
impurities which are trapped between fibers is not removed here. Gentle beating
action but no picking is performed here.
The system comprises two rotating beaters with rods or flexible pins projecting from
its surface and a series of grid bars positioned below the beater. The system is used
as a first cleaning stage for cotton tufts with high trash content and therefore receives
tufts from the automatic bale opener.
The large tufts which cannot get lost through the grid system, follow a spiral path
around the beater to the outlet and make contact with the projections (pins) on the
rotating beater surface several times. The tufts are then struck against the grid bars
to eject coarse trash particles.
Technical data:
Diameter of beater: 700~800 mm
Speed of beater: 400~800 rpm
Grid bar setting: 2.5~3.5 mm
Working principle of MX-U: In this zone, main function is to blend the raw
material of different quality to equalize and even the mean quality of delivered
material. Because natural fiber generally remains in variation in quality.
The system employed in this zone as shown in fig. comprises six vertical chamber
in sequence. The position of inlet is positioned at the upper side of the system so that
the tufts are distributed evenly to every chamber. The position of outlet for
transporting the airflow is located at down position of the system. The technology
of outlet is implemented in such a way that material is taken up by rotating rollers
evenly from every chamber and delivered after mixing. Therefore, mixing takes
place homogeneously at the inflow and outflow position.
Technical data:
Storage volume per chamber : 1.40~2.60 𝑚3
Storage capacity per chamber : 40~80 kg
Speed of opening roller : 1000~1200 rpm
Working principle of CL-C3: In this zone, basic function is to open the fiber tuft
to smallest size and to clean the tuft to the greater extent removing even smallest
size of trash and dust which are trapped between fibers. The size of fiber package is
converted from 0.1 gm to 0.01 gm in this zone. Therefore aggressive action is
performed here.
The system comprises 3 rotating beaters with carding saw tooth wire projecting from
its surface with different gradual point density and a series of grid bars positioned
below the beater. The system is used as a last opening and cleaning stage for cotton
tufts in the blow room and therefore receives tufts from the coarse cleaner and
opener. The material is carried by the inlet transporting the airflow to the machine
and undergoes aggressive action by the higher speed and higher saw tooth wire
density of the beater.
Importantly, the beater speed should progressively increase from beater 1 to 3 (for
example 800, 1200, 1900 rpm). Hence, the mean tuft size is decreased from 0.1 gm
by the first beater to 0.07 gm, 0.01 gm by the second and third beater.

Working Principle of SP-FP: In addition to natural contamination, white and

transparent particles (PP or PE) often cause quality problems in the blow room.
Foreign parts and foreign fibers must be divided into two completely different
groups: one group consists of parts that differ significantly from cotton by color,
contrast and structure. The other group is made up of bright and transparent foreign
parts that hardly differ in color from cotton and therefore are invisible to
conventional separators ( PP or PE).
The black arrow indicates the direction of the fiber mass flow as shown in figure.
The 3 CCD camera that give high but uniform illumination with two fields. The
cameras detect the distorted colors or contrasts generated by the polarization in light
polypropylene and transparent or semi-transparent PE foils. On detection of a
contaminated part of the fiber mass, a combination of a compressed air nozzle beam
(blowing device) and speed sensor are selectively activated to blow the contaminated
part of the fiber mass from the fiber channel into a waste suction unit. Therefore, the
fiber mass is screened to be free of material contaminants.

Cleaning Efficiency: Cleaning efficiency of the machine is the ratio of the trash
removed by the machine to that of total trash fed to the machine, expressed as
percentage.
trash in feed%−trash in delivery%
Cleaning efficiency = × 100%
trash in feed%
trash removed
= × 100%
total trash content

Let,
Total wt. of fiber in a lay down = 20,000 kg (100 bales)
Trash = 4% of total wt. = 800 kg
Trash removed = 2.8 % of total wt. = 560 kg
So, cleaning efficiency will be 70 % according to the formula.

Problems:
1. Raw cotton fed at blow room 10 ton, material fed at carding 9730 kg & material
delivered at carding 9134 kg. find out the wastage% at blow room & carding.
2. Trash in the cotton fed at blow room is 2.15% of input material (6 ton), trash in card
feed and delivered material is 31728 gm & 15365 gm respectively. Find out the cleaning
efficiency at blow room & carding.
 3. Let consider a modern blow room line two beating points CL-P as pre cleaner & CL-C3 as
fine cleaner are selected after automatic bale opener as following technical information.
Trash in bale – 800 cnt/gm, trash in card feed – 400 cnt/gm. Find out the cleaning
efficiency.

Basic parameters to be considered in blow room:

1. opening roller
2. beater & beater speed
3. grid bar & grid bar setting
4. Production rate of individual machine
5. Fiber micronaire
6. Tuft size in the feed
7. Position of the machine in the sequence
8. Amount of trash in the material
9. Temperature(30±2) and relative humidity(48±2) in the blow room

fig. beater fig. grid bars