TXL 221: Yarn Manufacture I

3 Credits

Course Coordinator: Prof. Sohel Rana

B.Tech. M.Tech. Ph.D. (IIT Delhi) FHEA CMgr (UK)

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 Marks Distribution

Minor: 40

Quiz : 20

Major: 40

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 Attendance Policy

▪ Minimum Attendance : 75%

▪ Attendance less than 75% : One grade down

▪ Attendance more than 95% : 5 bonus marks will be added to the final marks.

▪ Late attendance : Will be marked as absent after attendance has

been already registered.

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Course Outline (Lecture)

Opening/Blowroom:
✓ Principle of fibre opening in blow room
✓ Principle of fibre cleaning in blow room
✓ Opening and cleaning machines
✓ Principle of fibre blending
✓ Recent developments

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Course Outline (Lecture)

Carding:
▪ Objective and principle of carding
▪ Machine elements and operations
▪ Sliver formation and fibre configurations in sliver
▪ Automation and recent developments

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Course Outline (Lecture)

Drafting/Drawframe:

✓ Objectives, principles and methods of roller drafting.

✓ Purpose and principle of condensation of fibres.

✓ Causes of mass variation of sliver and control.

✓ Automation and recent developments in draw frames

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Reference Books

✓ A Practical Guide to Opening and Carding, Short-staple Spinning

Series (Volume 2), By W. Klein

✓ A Practical Guide to Combing and Drawing, Short-staple Spinning

Series (Volume 3), By W. Klein

✓ Fundamentals of Spun Yarn Technology By Carl A Lawrence

✓ Handbook of Yarn Production-Technology, Science and Economics By Peter

R. Lord

✓ Spun Yarn Technology By Eric Oxtoby

✓ NPTEL lecture series, IIT Delhi

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Introduction
What is a yarn?
“A yarn may be defined as a product of substantial length and relatively small cross-section of fibres
and/or filament(s) with or without twist, used for interlacing in processes such as knitting, weaving, or
sewing”

Different Types of Yarn

▪ Continuous filament yarns

▪ Staple spun yarns

▪ Composite yarns

▪ Folded/plied/doubled yarns
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Production of Staple Yarn: Cotton and Blends

Removal of cotton
fibre from seeds
227 kg each
0.2 g/cm3
Ginning process

Cotton Bale

How to make cotton yarn from bale?

Seed fibre, cellulosic, hydrophilic ✓ Opening

✓ Cleaning why?

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Impurities in Cotton Fibre

➢ Vegetable matter (50-80%)

Seed fragments, stem fragments,
leaf fragments, etc.

➢ Mineral matter (10-20%)

Dust, sand, soil, etc.

➢ Fibre fragments

➢ Others Trash size > 500 micron

Metal particles, cloth fragments, Dust < 50 micron
Micro dust < 15 micron
packaging materials, etc.

Problems?

Yarn fault, damage to machines, health hazard to the workers

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How staple yarns are produced?

Opening, cleaning,
Fibres in compressed form Individualization
blending

Attenuation

Yarn Twisting Parallelization

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 Spinning Process Flowchart
Drawframe
Blow room Carding (Parallelization, Combing
(Opening, cleaning, (Disentanglement & straightening & (Removal of short
mixing, blending) cleaning) reducing mass fibres and neps)
variation)

Roving Frame
(Reduction in mass
per unit length)

Winding Spinning
Plying (Ring, rotor, vortex,
(Fault removal &
(Plied yarn) air-jet spinning)
packaging)

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Blowroom

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Blowroom

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Introduction to Blowroom
Opening

Fibres come to spinning mill in bale form.

BALE
Compact
Easy for transportation

Cleaning

Further processing
(Lap formation/chute feed to
card)
Blending
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Blowroom Operating Zones

Why Blowroom has different

zones and machines?

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Opening of Bale

How to open bale?

✓ Removing individual fibres from bale ?

✓ Dividing and subdividing bales?

Question: In a spinning mill, cotton fiber is supplied in compacted bales of about 226.8 kg
each. The bale dimensions is typically 1.4 ×0.53×0.64 m, and the bale density is 478 kg/m3. If
the individual fibers are 30 mm in length and 1.7 dtex fineness and the production rate of the
plant is 500 kg/h, then how many fibres need to be separated per second from the bale?

Ans:
No. of fibres in each bale = 45 billion (approx.)

No. fibres to be separated per hour = 98 billion, 27 million fibers per second

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Opening of Bale

How to open bale?

Removing large clumps of fibres from a bale

Progressively dividing the large clumps into

many smaller pieces.

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Opening of Tufts

Different Possibilities

✓ A large tuft is divided into several smaller tufts How to measure fibre openness?

- By measuring specific volume

- By measuring tuft weight
✓ Volume of tuft increases without disintegration

✓ Shape of the tuft changes

M1, M2,…blowroom machines

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Opening of tufts: different principles

✓ Plucking

✓ Tearing between oppositely moving

spikes

✓ Teasing in nipped state by needles or

saw tooth

✓ Using impact force at nipped state or

free flight

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Opening of tufts: different principles
Plucking out ➢ Two spring systems facing each other.
➢ Material is grasped like finger
➢ Very gentle action
➢ Produces large tufts of uneven size

Forks or Plucker

Rotating discs How blending is possible?

✓ Two rotating disc picks up fibre tufts from bale surface - Bale layout
✓ Tuft size: 30-80 mg

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Opening of tufts: different principles

Teasing out by Tooth disc

✓ Tooth discs have triangular plucking

elements

✓ The discs are secured to a shaft

✓ Asymmetrically formed

✓ Operate only in one direction

✓ If the disc needs to operate in both

direction ?

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Opening of tufts: different principles

Tearing

✓ Tufts are acted by oppositely moving spikes

and torn apart into pieces

✓ Thorough mixing How?

✓ Formation of neps

✓ The intensity of opening action depends on

▪ Distance between the spiked devices
▪ Speed relationships
▪ Total working surface
▪ No. of points

Mild action

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Opening of tufts: different principles

Impact by Bladed Beaters

✓ Consists of 2-3 beater bars

✓ In one rotation, the feed

sheet receives 2-3 blows
across the full width Feed length
in one
rotation

Opening and cleaning effect? Beating lines on tuft sheet

Low

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Opening of tufts: different principles

Impact by Strikers
Striking
points
✓ Flat, oval or round bars are
riveted or screwed to a cylinder

✓ Various spacing of the strikers

elements may be used. Why?

✓ Speed: 600 – 1000 rpm

Opening intensity depends on

✓ Distance between feeding and opening elements
✓ Speed ratio Why are the striking elements
✓ Number of striking elements staggered?

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Opening of tufts: different principles

Teasing out by Saw teeth

✓ A cylinder surface filled with saw tooth

✓ Fine setting between the elements

✓ Suitable for smaller flocks

✓ Generate new surfaces

✓ Spacing between teeth : 6 - 8.5 mm

Tooth height: 4.5 - 5.5 mm

Suitable for finest opening and best cleaning.

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Opening of tufts: different principles

Teasing out by Needles

✓ Pinned bars are secured to the

cast iron arms

✓ The inclined pins penetrate and

combs through the fibres
Kirschner Beater
✓ Generates new tuft surface and
liberates trash particles

✓ Operates at 800-900 rpm

Cleaning efficiency is very high

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Opening Intensity

✓ Fibre Mass/Striker ✓ Blows/Kg

✓ Beats/inch

Typical beats per inch: 30-50

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Cleaning Principle

Trash Liberation Mechanism of Trash Liberation

✓ Loss of kinetic energy (scrubbing)

✓ Impulse (Beating)
✓ Centrifugal force
Trash Separation

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Loss of kinetic energy (scrubbing)

✓ Fibre tufts are guided over stationary grid bars

✓ The kinetic energy of trash particles after impact

becomes almost zero and liberated from fibre tufts

What is separation mechanism?

The liberated particles fall down due to gravity and separated

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Mechanism of Trash Liberation

Grid Bars

Cleaning action depends on:

✓ Distance of grid bars from beater
✓ Gaps between the bars
✓ Setting angle related to the beater

✓ Slotted sheets (a): Poor cleaning

✓ Perforated sheets (b): Poor cleaning
✓ Triangular section bars (c): Mostly used
✓ Angle bars (d): Moderate cleaning
✓ Blades (e): Strong and effective

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Mechanism of Trash Liberation
Impulse (Beating)

➢ Flocks are fed by feed rollers and are subjected to

strong blows by the blades of a beater.

➢ Velocity of tufts changes instantly (in microseconds)

Impulse: change in momentum

= 𝒎 𝒗𝒊 − 𝒗𝒇

m is the mass of tuft, 𝑣𝑖 is the initial velocity, 𝑣𝑓 is the initial velocity,

i.e., feed roller surface speed, final velocity (surface speed of bater at
the top of strikers)

How the trash will be separated?

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Mechanism of Trash Liberation

Centrifugal force

✓ Trash particles resting on the saw tooth, strikers or blades are

subjected to a high centrifugal force.

✓ Trash particles have low attachment with the striking

elements.

𝐶𝐹 = 𝑚𝑟ω2

What is the trash separating mechanism?

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Mechanism of Trash Separation

Pneumatic force

✓ Fibre flocks with liberated trash particles are

directed towards a moving perforated screen.

✓ Trash particles are sucked through the perforations

Separation by buoyancy difference

✓ Mixture of tufts and trash particles are directed

downwards
✓ A stream of air flow cross the path horizontally.

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Dust and Metal Removal

Dust Removal

Difficulties:

✓ Dust is lighter than fibres

✓ Strong adherence with fibres

Liberation mechanism:

➢ High metal to fibre friction

➢ Fibre to fibre friction

Separation Mechanism:
✓ Through suction Metal Extractor

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Cleaning Efficiency

𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒉 𝒊𝒏 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒅 % −𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒉 𝒊𝒏 𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 (%)

Cleaning efficiency (CE %) = ×100
𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒉 𝒊𝒏 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒅 (%)

❖ The CE % of individual cleaner varies according to their type and position

❖ The beater or cleaner in the beginning of the blowroom line shows
- higher cleaning efficiency

❖ More cleaning means more waste and loss of good fibres (lint)

❖ Lint in the waste should be in the range of 20-30%.

❖ After opening and cleaning nep level in blowroom increases significantly

- due to blunt opening elements and grid bars
- due to repeated action of beaters or strikers

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Opening and Cleaning Principle

What we have learnt so far…………

Importance of Yarn manufacturing in India

- India is the world’s second largest cotton producing country
- India has the world’s second largest spinning capacity after China
- Ample opportunities in Technical Textiles (NTTM), entrepreneurship, machine manufacturing, etc.

Different Steps in Yarn Manufacturing

Objectives and Principles of Opening and Cleaning

- What is opening?
- Why and how opening is done?
- Why and how cleaning is done?
- Why does a blowroom line need a specific opener and cleaner at a specific place?
- How opening and cleaning intensity are measured?
- What are the parameters which affect opening and cleaning intensity?

New Opening and Cleaning Principles……………………

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Blowroom Machines

Plucking by Opening by Mixing, Opening by Opening by Beater (Clamp Opening by Beater

Tooth Disc spiked lattices No Opening Beater (free flight) feed, fine striker setting) (Clamp feed, pins or saw tooth

+ + + + + +
Cleaning: Cleaning: Cleaning: using
Cleaning: No Cleaning: No Cleaning: No grid bars
using grid bars using grid bars

Automatic Mixing Bale Mixer Coarse Fine Intensive cleaner

Bale Opener Opener cleaner cleaner

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Blowroom Machines

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Blowroom Machines
Automatic Bale Opener: Unifloc (Rieter)

✓ Rotating tooth discs pluck out fibre flocks (micro tufts)

✓ Bale height is automatically detected
✓ Depth of penetration: 2-4 mm
✓ Can turn by 180° to process bales on the other side
✓ Production: up to 2000 kg/hr

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Blowroom Machines
Coarse Cleaner ✓ Consists of series of drums with four rows of
striking elements

✓ Grid bars cover 25% of individual drum chamber

✓ Inclination angle 45 to 60°

✓ Beater speed: 500 to 600 rpm

Step Cleaner

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Blowroom Machines
Coarse Cleaner

✓ The drum surface is covered with 6-8 rows of striking elements

✓ The fibre tufts enters at right angle to the beater axis and receives
strikes
✓ The guide plates ensure than the fibre tufts follow a spiral path. Why?

Monocylinder Cleaner

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Blowroom Machines
Coarse Cleaner

UNIclean B12

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Blowroom Machines
Fine Cleaner

Cleaner CL-C3 (Trützschler)

RN Cleaner (Trützschler)
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Blowroom Machines
Intensive Cleaner

Filing chute (1)

Perforated drum (2)

Feed roll (3)
Grid bar (4)
Opening cylinder (5)

ERM Cleaner (Rieter) Uniflex (Rieter)

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Blowroom Machines
Different types of clamping device

Feed Roller
✓ Higher clamping distance
✓ Not powerful grip
✓ Uneven clamping

Feed Plate

✓ Small clamping distance

Pedal rollers
✓ More powerful grip
✓ 16 pedal rollers
✓ Uneven clamping
✓ Small clamping distance
✓ Even clamping

Piano Feed

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Blowroom Machines
Mixer/Blender

Purpose of blending/mixing

✓ To average out the variation

in fibre characteristics

✓ To engineer a textile yarn

with specific properties

✓ To produce a certain shade by

mixing fibres of different
colours

✓ To reduce the cost

Fibre blending using drawframe Fibre blending using blowroom

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Blowroom Machines
Mixer

Mixing through bale lay down

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Blowroom Machines
Mixer

Automatic bale opener does not give homogeneous mixing. Why?

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Blowroom Machines

Multimixer

✓Consists of 6-10 vertical compartments

✓Cotton tufts are filled up to a certain

filling height

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 Blowroom Machines
Continuous Operation
Multimixer
Discontinuous Operation

BDT = 93-3 = 90 min

The largest difference in the filling time of tufts in different boxes is

The compartments are filled up in a staggered
known as Blending delay time (BDT)
configuration from 1st to last compartment
BDT is constant in case of discontinuous operation

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Blowroom Machines
Multimixer
1st cycle

Blending delay time (BDT): 45 min Blending delay time (BDT): 57 min Blending delay time (BDT): 66 min

6th cycle:
4thcycle: 5th Cycle:
Blending delay time (BDT): 75 min
Blending delay time (BDT): 72 min Blending delay time (BDT): 75 min

How BDT changes with feed cycle and number of compartments?

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Blowroom Machines

Unimix (Rieter)

90° bend in the material flow produces a shift in

the timing resulting in long term blending

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Blowroom Machines

Blender

Metered amount of tufts are mixed together to maintain the blend ratio

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Blowroom Machines

Blender

✓ A metering system is used to drop a measured quantity of material to

the conveyor belt
✓ Materials from 3-4 blenders are dumped together in sandwich form to
form the blend

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Blowroom Machines

Blender

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Blowroom Machines

Blender

UNIblend A 81

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Parameters influencing waste level

✓ The amount of trash (%) in feed

✓ Speed of the opening device

✓ Setting between feed roller and line of

action of beater

✓ Grid bar inclination and opening

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Parameters influencing waste level

Effect of trash% Effect of feed pedal distance

Waste % decreases with the increase in feed

Waste % increases linearly with the trash% pedal distance

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Parameters influencing waste level
Effect of grid bar opening Effect of grid bar angle
Good fibre (%)

Cage loss (%)

Trash (%)

Good
fibre% Higher beater speed

Trash%

Good fibre(%)
Cage loss (%)
Grid bar opening
Trash (%)

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Parameters influencing waste level
Effect of trash% on cleaning Effect of fibre type on cleaning

Why non-linear after 4% trash? Cleaning resistance of cotton

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Parameters influencing waste level

Problem: In a blowroom line, a fine cleaner gives cleaning efficiency of 24% for trash content in the feed of
4.3%. The amount of waste collected under the cleaner is 2.8%. Calculate the trash and lint% in the waste.

Ans: Trash collected in waste: 40%

Lint collected in waster: 60%

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Cleaning of different fibre types

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Cleaning of different fibre types

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Cleaning of different fibre types

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Lap Formation

No Scutcher in modern
blowroom line:
Flock Feed system

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Carding Process

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Carding Machine Zones

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Carding Machine Zones

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Carding Machine Functioning

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Purpose of Carding Process

Individualization of fibre
tufts

Cleaning of fibres

Removal of fibre
clusters/neps

Mixing of fibres

Production of assembly of
random array of fibres

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Carding Action

Conditions for carding action:

✓ Wire points of interacting surfaces should be inclined with

inclination direction opposite to each other: point against
point configuration.

✓ The surfaces can move in the same or opposite directions

✓ If they move in same direction, the material carrying surface

should move at a faster speed

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Carding Action

For carding action,

Fibre should move towards the base of the wire point by
overcoming fibre-metal frictional force

So,

Similarly,
R: Tension in the fibre
μ: Frictional co-efficient

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Carding Action

Wire point inclination angle depends on the frictional co-efficient between fibre
and wire point.

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Stripping Action

Conditions for stripping action:

✓ Wire points of interacting surfaces should be inclined

in the same direction: point against back
configuration.

✓ The surfaces can move in the same or opposite

directions

✓ If they move in same direction, the material receiving

the material surface should move at a faster speed

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Stripping Action

For stripping action,

Fibre should move away from the wire point by overcoming
fibre-metal frictional force

So,

R: Tension in the fibre

μ: Frictional co-efficient

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Carding Theory

Tufts are subjected to high compressive force which In the boundary layer, a tuft is subjected to high
embeds the tuft within the wire points and the shear shear force due to air velocity gradient which
force breaks the tuft into small pieces. progressively reduces the tuft size.

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 Carding Theory

Fibres are opened progressively into single fibre level due to the carding action
between cylinder and flat wire points.

Flat strip mainly contains trash particles and short fibres.

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Carding Theory (Acting along the wire point away from the base)

(Acting ⊥ to the wire point)

Effect of Centrifugal Force Similarly,

Frictional force,

So, the fibre can move towards the tip of the wire point if

T: Centrifugal force acting radially upward

P: Air drag acting parallelly to the clothing base
β: Inclination angle

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Licker in/Taker in

Function of Licker in

✓ Tear apart the lap/flocks into tuflets

✓ Remove trash particles

✓ Transfer the fibre to cylinder

What is the action between liker in and cylinder wire points?

Diameter: 10 inch
Speed: 800-1600 rpm

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Cylinder zone
Function of Cylinder

✓ Carding action (between wire points of cylinder

and flats)

✓ Removal of trash particles: which mechanism?

✓ Removal of short fibres

✓ Removal/opening of neps

✓ Fibre blending

How fibre blending occurs on cylinder ?

Diameter: 50 ¾ inch Carding zone: 158 cm

Speed: 200 to 600 rpm Rieter C81 card: 3.16 m

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Flats

✓ Flats are cast iron bars which have T-shaped cross-section

✓ Lower surface is covered with wire points
✓ 80-110 flats are linked together to form a chain
✓ Flat rests on metallic strips on both sides known as flexible bends

Function of Flats

✓ Carding action (between wire points of

cylinder and flats)

✓ Removal of trash particles

✓ Removal of short fibres

✓ Removal/opening of neps

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Flats
✓ A flat can be considered as a beam supported at its
both end

✓ The gap between a flat and cylinder wire points is

constant across the width of the cylinder

✓ The gap between a flat and cylinder wire points

gradually decrease in the direction of cylinder
movement Why?

Why a flat has a T-shaped cross-section?

Heel and toe
arrangement

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Main Parts of Carding Machine
Clean flats are introduced
from doffer side
Movement of Flats:

Continuous operation:
✓ No need to stop for cleaning
✓ No need to stop for wire points grinding Large trash particles
Backward
are removed
movement immediately
Which Direction? Easy drive

Forward
movement

Easy cleaning Affected cleaning

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Flats

How long opening continues in the carding zone?

✓ Effective opening of tufts occurs until 15th flat

location

✓ Carding force represents the force to open the

fibre tufts.

✓ After 16th flat location, carding force remains

constant, but cleaning process continues.

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Cylinder –Doffer Region

✓ Suction hood removes the dust laden air

from the card generated due to carding
action.

✓ Post carding segments open the fibre

clusters which escape the opening action in
the carding region.

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Fibres are transferred from cylinder to doffer.

Doffer
- Carding or stripping mode?

✓ Cast iron cylinder

✓ Diameter: 27 inch
✓ Speed: 10-60 rpm

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Main Parts of Carding Machine

Fibre Transfer to Doffer

Problem with carding mode of transfer:

Is fibre transfer in
stripping mode possible?
✓ Fibre disorientation

✓ Fibre layer will be too thin ✓ Too thick cylinder load deteriorates the
quality of carding
✓ Fibre layer can be thrown due to high
centrifugal force

✓ Very difficult to form a coherent

sliver

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