Air Jet Spinning Air jet spinning has offered yarn manufacturers the opportunity to produce yarn at relatively

high production rate. Unlike other spinning methods in which productivity is limited by the amount of twist in the yarn, Air Jet yarns can be produced at the same production rate regardless of yarn counts. Murata Vortex Spinners are one such leading Air Jet spinning machines which excel at producing finer yarns, because of the improved strength imparted to the smaller fiber bundle. What is Air-Jet Spinning?

Air-jet spinning is a pneumatic method which consists of passing a drafted strand of fibers through one or two fluid nozzles located between the front roller of a drafting system and a take up a device. Look at the figure which demonstrates the Murata principle of producing fascinated yarns with two nozzles N1 and N2. This has been shown to

be superior to methods employing a single nozzle to spin the yarn. The drafting system S drafts the input material into a ribbon like form with parallel fibers. Air is injected into the two nozzles N1 and N2 at high pressures, which cause swirling air streams in opposite directions. Sliver is fed into the machine and is further drawn out to the final count and twist is inserted by means of a rotating vortex of high pressured air. The resultant yarn is cleared of any defects and wound onto packages ready for use in fabric formation. Some fibers, particularly those at the edges of the ribbon, will not be subjected to the full twisting action imparted to the main body of fibers by the downstream airjet. Hence they receive less twist than those fibers in the main bundle. When the yarn gets untwisted in the downstream of the twister, the low twist edge fibers get untwisted to a greater degree than their original twist. Therefore they are given a true twist in the direction opposite to that of the upstream twist.

The main body of the strand will be untwisted into parallel fibers, forming the core and these will be wrapped around by the edge fibers forming the wrapper fiber layer or the sheath, thus forming a fascinated yarn. The function of the back nozzle is to enhance the cohesion of the strand thus giving greater yarn strength. Since the direction of airflow in the back nozzle is opposite to that of the front nozzle, the back nozzle tends to untwist the wrapper fibers as they are formed inside the front nozzle. This increases the length of wrapping, thus improving the yarn cohesion. The air-jet spun yarn consists of an untwisted core of parallel fibers and a surface wrapping of fibers. The core fibers account for approximately 85-95% of the yarn mass. The surface wrapper fibers are helical in nature unlike the wrapper fibers in the rotor yarn. The wrapper fibers are not uniformly distributed over the length; sometimes they are more on the surface and sometimes very few are on the surface. Their frequency and tightness being influenced by the fiber physical properties and the spinning process parameters. The high level of constriction of the straight core fibers by the surface wrapper fibers results in high bending modulus of air-jet yarns.

The tensile strength is lower than that of rotor and ring yarns. More wrapping turns give better yarn strength, but at the same time higher wrapping frequency leads to higher bending rigidity and lower compressive softness. The untwisted core fibers contribute to very low snarling tendency of the air-jet spun yarns. Surface fibers twisted lightly around the core cause the yarn to be well suited for use as filling in air-jet weaving machines, as it can be propelled across the shed more quickly. The lack of twist in the air-jet yarn core is believed to contribute to the low pilling propensity of these yarns. The pills can still be created from abrasion, but they are not locked into the structure because of the absence of the twist. Pills break away easily after they are formed. Also it has been shown that as the number of the core fibers increase, the proportion of the protruding fibers is reduced, resulting in lower yarn hairiness. The typical yarn properties exhibited by the air-jet yarns are good tenacity, good evenness, low snarling tendency, and low tendency to pilling, high stiffness and high shrinkage.

The production rate of air jet/vortex spinning is 3-5 times higher than rotor spinning and 10-20 times that of ring spinning and, like rotor spinning; air-jet spun yarn is a lot cheaper to produce as it also uses fewer production stages. As is the case with rotor spun yarns, air jet yarns are more even, but weaker and have a harsher feel than ring spun yarns. Air jet spun yarns are mainly produced in the medium count (30 Ne, 20 tex) range and are mainly polyester/cotton blended yarns. End uses include woven sheeting and knitted lightweight shirting.

AIRJET SPINNING MACHINE

PRINCIPLE OF AIRJET SPINNING

Friction Spinning Friction Spinning is a textile technology that allows very heavy count yarns and technical core-wrapped yarns to be manufactured. These are most commonly used in mop yarns, flame retardants and high tech fancy yarns such as Raydon and Kevlar. The technology was developed by Dr. Ernst Fehrer. There are three current technologies used today for spinning fibers, Roving spinning which uses the legacy ring -spinning technology of the twentieth century, Open end, Rotor or Break Spinning used for high quality threads and friction spinning for other yarns. Friction spinning is the fastest of all these techniques though the yarn is irregular and bulkier, making it only suitable for some applications. The Process Yarn formation in friction spinning system. The mechanism of yarn formation is quite complex. It consists of three distinct operations, namely: feeding of fibers, fiber integration and twist insertion. Feeding The individualized fibres are transported by air currents and deposited in the spinning zone. The mode of fibre feed has a definite effect on fibre extent and fibre configuration in yarn and on its properties. There are two methods of fibre feed 1) direct feed and 2) Indirect feed. In case of direct feed, fibres are fed directly onto the rotating

fibre mass that outer part of the yarn tail. In indirect feed, fibres are first accumulated on the in-going roll and then transferred to the yarn tail. Fibres Integration The fibres through feed tube assembles onto a yarn core/tail within the shear field, is provided by two rotating spinning drums and the yarn core is in between them. The shear causes sheath fibres to wrap around the yarn core. The fibre orientation is highly dependent on the decelerating fibres arriving at the assembly point through the turbulent flow. The fibres in the friction drum have two probable methods for integration of incoming fibres to the sheath. One method, the fibre assembles completely on to perforated drum before their transfer to the rotating sheath. In the other method, fibres are laid directly on to rotating sheath. Twist insertion There has been much research on the twisting process in friction spinning. In friction spinning, the fibres are applied twist with more or less one at a time without cyclic differentials in tension in the twisting zone. Therefore, fibre migration may not take place in friction spun yarns. The mechanism of twist insertion for core type friction spinning and open end friction spinning are different, which are described below. Twist insertion in core-type friction spinning:

In core type friction spinning, the core, made of a filament or a bundle of staple fibres, is false twisted by the spinning drum. The sheath fibres are deposited on the false twisted core surface and are wrapped helically over the core with varying helix angles. It is believed that the false twist in the core gets removed once the yarn is emerged from the spinning drums, so that this yarn has a virtually twist-less core. However, it is quite possible for some amount of false twist to remain in the fact that the sheath entraps it during yarn formation in the spinning zone. Twist insertion in open end type friction spinning In open end type frictions spinning the fibres in the yarn are integrated as a stacked cone. The fibres in the surface of the yarn found more compact and good packing density than the axial fibres in the yarn. Structure of the yarn tail: The yarn tail can be considered as a loosely constructed conical mass of fibres, formed at the nip of the spinning drums. It is of very porous and lofty structure. The fibres are rotating at very high speed. Advantages of Friction spinning system The forming yarn rotates at high speed compare to other rotating elements. It can spin yarn at very high twist insertion rates (ie.3,00,000 twist/min). The yarn tension is practically independent of speed and hence very high production rates (up to 300 m/min) can be attainable. The yarns are bulkier than rotor yarns.

The DREF II yarns are used in many applications. Blankets for the home application range, hotels and military uses etc. DREF fancy yarns used for the interior decoration, wall coverings, draperies and filler yarn.

Frictions are spinning technologies works on the principle of open-end or wrap (Fascinated)/core spinning. The general principle of working of friction spinning in its simplest form can be described as below.

As in the above diagram, separating them from slivers generates a stream of fibres, which is transported through a duct. The fibres are then directed towards the nip of two rotating drums called friction drums .The fibres are collected close to the nip of these drums. The friction drums have perforations on it and suction from inside holds the fibres on the surface. There is a long slot inside the friction drums located close to the nip point along the length of friction drums and the rest of the area inside the perforated drum has a shield. So, the yarn at the nip of the friction drum is subjected to a radial force generated as a result of airflow over yarn.