LECTURE OUTLINE PROCESSING FIBER INTO YARN I. The History of Fiber Processing 11. Material Opening and Cleaning A. Preparing the bale lay-down 1. Selection of bales 2. Bale arrangement for blending 3. Removal of bands and bagging B. Opening and cleaning equipment 1. Weigh-pan feeders 2. Magnetic and electronic cleaners 3. Dust removers 4. Beater type cleaners 5. Positive-fed saw-type cleaners 111. Carding A. Opening of fiber B. Cleaning as a hction C. Reducing or drafting D. Packaging of stock IV. Drawing A. Drafting and fiber orientation B. Blending and uniformity V. Combing A. Combing preparation 1. Drawing for Iapper 2. Lapping B. Principles of combing operation I. Feeding of laps 2. Nipping of fiber 3. Circular combing 4. Detaching 5. Top combing V. Combing (continued) C. Primary functions 1. Removal of short fiber (noils) 2. Removal of trash D. Secondary functions 1. Reducing and drafting 2. Blending and packaging VI. Roving A. Definition and description of machine B. Description of product C. Purpose of roving machine 1. Drafting 2. Twisting 3. Packaging a. laying b. winding c. building VII. Types of Spinning A. Intermittent spinning 1. Hand Spinning 2. Saxony Wheel-Spinning Jenny B. Continuous spinning 1. Cap spinning 2. Centrifugal spinning 3. Flyer spinning 4. Ring spinning a. definition and description of process 1. drafting of fibers 2. twisting of yarn 3. packagmg of yarn aa. laying bb. winding cc. package building b. other ring spinning factors 1. ring and traveler 2. speeds and rpms C. Open-end spinning 1. Definition and methods a. pneumatic-Murata Air Jet b. friction-DREF I, 11, III c. aero-mechanical-rotor 2. Rotor spinning a. feed assembly b. drafting c. transporting d. condensing e. twisting f. packaging g. other aspects affecting rotor spinning 1. opening roller type and speed 2. rotor type and speed 3. navel surfaces and false twist devices 4. trash extraction 5. component wear THE HISTORY OF FIBER PROCESSING The art of spinning yarn from fibers is so old that it antedates recorded history. From artifacts that have been discovered, it is evident that a form of cloth woven fiom fibers was used by cavemen while the mammoth, the giant sloth and the saber-tooth tiger roamed the earth during the Stone Age. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics picture men and women engaged in spinning and weaving. Cloth made of spun yarn so fine that it cannot be duplicated by modem machines and processes have been unearthed from the tombs of the Pharaohs of 6,000 years ago. The earliest known method of spinning was by drafting the fibers by hand and winding them on a distaff or rod. Hand spindles have been found among the excavated ruins of ancient civilizations in many parts of the world. Spinning is not the discovery or invention of any one man or era. Rather, it is the accumulated howledge and technological advances of myriad people through thousands of years of striving for better ways to obtain the necessities of everyday living. The evolution of spinning from a home-based handicraft to a mass production industry has been within the last two centuries. Fairly accurate records of the development in spinning during what is often called the Machine Age are available, but details of some of the early machines are sadly lacking. The invention of the Saxony Wheel by Johann Jurgen of ~runswick,'Germanyduring the latter part of the sixteenth century was the first break-through in the mechanization of spinning. The Spinning Jenny, invented by James Hargreaves in 1764, was actually a modification of the Saxony Wheel with a number of spindles. James Wyatt is credited with the invention of drafting with rolls, and he built a spinning machine as early as 1730. Lewis Paul worked with Wyatt and patented a spinning machine in 1738, and another in 1758. However, these first machines were not successful due to the lack of intermediate processes to prepare the fibers for final drafting. Thomas Highs claimed credit for the invention of both roller spinning and the Spinning Jenny and won a court suit against Richard Arkwright, who held a number of patents on these developments. However, there had always been some doubt about the authenticity of High's claims. Richard Arkwright is given credit for developing the first successful machines for manufacturing spun yam. He patented a spinning machine in 1769. Finding that preparatory processing was needed for the fibers, he developed and patented carding, drawing, roving, and spinning machines in 1775. Samuel Crompton invented the Spinning Mule, a cross between the Jenny and the Jack, or water frame, in 1779. The water frame was so called because the first models were pulled by water- power. Christopher Tully is given credit for building the first spinning machine in America. This machine, a Spinning Jenny, was placed in the mill of Samuel Wetherill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1775. Although he was not the first to manufacture yarn with machines in America, Samuel Slater was the first to build and use machinery based on the Arkwright system. These machines were built from memory (before coming to America, Slater had worked eight years for Jerediah Strut7 a partner of Richard Arkwright) and there is no record of Slater actually inventing any of them. However, there is no doubt that by Sam Slater equipping his mill at Pawtucket, Rhode Island with successful textile machines in 1793, it was one of the greatest stimulants to the invention and enterprise in making the United States a world leader in both textile manufacturing and machinery building. Paul Moody, superintendent of the Boston Manufacturing Company mill at Waltham, Massachusetts, invented the filling throstle in 1819 and eliminated the costly winding process of transfening the filling yarn to filling bobbins. It was in the basement machine shop of this mill at Watharn, founded by Francis Cabot Lowell in 1813, that the present-day Saco Lowell Shops had their beginning. Moody invented the dead spindle system of thostle spinning in 1821, which was predominated in Northern New England until after the Civil War. Two notable spinning inventions of this era were cap spinning, patented by Charles Danforth in1 828 and ring spinning, developed by John Thorp in 1830. Ring spinning gradually became the predominate spinning system throughout the world, especially on cotton stock.' 1. Platt Saco Lowell, Instruction Manual S~inomaticS~inning Frame, Fifth Edition, pp. 8- 11. GLOSSARY OF SHORT STAPLE PROCESSING TERMS (In Order of Occurrence) Blending: The technique of mixing two or more dissimilar fibers in a very uniform mixture. Can be done prior to carding or at the drawfhme. Opening: A preliminary operation in staple fiber processing that separates compressed masses of fiber into loose turfs and removes heavier impurities. Cleaning: Separating the non-lint £tom the lint. Carding: The disentanglement of fibers by working them between two closely spaced, relatively moving surfaces clothed with wire, pin, or saw teeth. Sliver: As assemblage of fibers in rope fom without twist, produced at carding, drawing, and combing. Drahg: The process of attenuating raw stock, sliver, and roving to reduce their mass per unit length. Drawing: Textile operations by which a number of slivers are blended (doubled) into a single sliver and made more uniform by drafting and by parallelizing the fibers. Doublings: A number of laps, slivers, or rovings feh simultaneously into a machine for drafting into a single strand usually to promote regularity and homogeneity of a product at each stage of processing. Lapping: Combining a number of slivers together in lap form for combing preparation. Combing: The straightening and parallelizing of fibers to remove short fibers and impurities by using a comb, or combs, assisted by brushes and rollers and sometimes by knives. Roving: Intermediate state between sliver and ring spinning where the sliver is condensed and a small amount of twist is added for stability. Spinning-Ring: A type of spinning incorporating ring and traveler in which, on leaving the delivery rollers, the yam passes through a guide arranged centrally above the top of the spindle, down and through a traveler positioned on the ring and onto a driven yam package which sits on the spindle. Spinning-Open End: The production of spun yarns by a process in which the sliver or roving is opened or separated to its individual fibers or tufts and is subsequently reassembled in the spinning element to form a yam. Winding: Process of transferring yam from one type of package to another, more suitable, package for subsequent processing. Necessary in ring spinning to transfer yam from bobbins to cones. Clearing Yam: The process of removing imperfections such as slubs, neps, or projecting impurities from the body of a yam. Plied Yams: Yams made by twisting two or more strands of single yam together. Outline of Short Staple Processing (through yarn production) HunterWe6h Pan Hopper Feeders Dust Remover -Condenser r AMH Blender 1 Rieter Aemfeed Carding Rieter C-4 Card Trashmaster Piatt Saw Lowell DE-7C Drawframe lC3Rieter E7/6 Comber Rieter RSB851 Drawframe Saw Lowell Rovematic FC-1 B Roving Frame I Ring Spinning Leesona Unconer Wnder Non-ring Sphning OE-Rotor Spinning Whitin Roberts Ring Twister Fabric Formation: Weaving or Knitting MATERIAL OPENING AND CLEANING When a bale of cotton arrives at a textile plant, it is tightly compressed and usually has a density of around 28 to 30 pounds/cubic foot. Cotton is usually shipped in weights of 480 pounds per bale, whereas man-made fibers are shipped in weights of 600 to 700 pounds per bale. Here again, this is compressed tightly, which is a practical necessity for shipment.