Cotton has several uses and a thousand faces, it is well known for its usefulness, look, presentation and above all the comfort it gives. It generates millions of employment as it moves from yarn to final products.
Prior to reaching our wardrobes, cotton goes on an extensively hectic voyage that takes it around the world. Several players are engaged in the each phases of production. The following is a brief outline of the cotton voyage in the textile industry.
Production of Yarn
Emerging technologies have resulted massive developments in the textile industry. Machines have been modernized and now many operations are fully automated with computerized systems. The speeds of machine have been substantially increased.
At many mills the opening of cotton bales is fully automated. Lint from bales is blended together to produce a uniform fiber properties. To make sure that the automated feeding machines performs in an efficient way and the properties of fibers are uniform, computerized system dictates the bales for production and feeding as per the fiber properties.
The mixed lint is blown by air via chutes to clean, and carding machines separate and brings fibers in line to a slender web. Carding machines can process cotton at 100 pounds an hour. Following the procedure, the web of fibers that are at the front of the card is driven into funnel-shaped equipment called a Trumpet, providing rope-like thread known as sliver.
At a time, eight threads of sliver are blended in the drawing process. In recent years, drawing speeds have increased considerably, which at present is beyond 1,500 feet a minute.
Then roving frames draw/draft the slivers out finer, adds a little twist – which makes it thinner and tighter in anticipation of attaining the yarn thickness/count required for weaving or knitting fabric.
Open-end spinning with rotors, which can spin 5-6 times faster then a ring spinning machine, are getting more admiration. In this process, the yarn is made straight from sliver, eliminating roving process.
Other spinning operations have also sweep off the requirement for roving, and limitation of ring and open-end spinning that is mechanical twisting. These systems utilize compressed air currents to steady the yarn.
These operations result tightly wounding of yarns around bobbins/tubes, as well as prepares the yarn for fabric manufacturing.