Fiber Characteristics of Cotton Fiber Posted by Unknown on 7:33 AM No comments

Cotton is one of the popular natural vegetable fibers which is widely used in textile and garments industry to produce different type’s apparel and garments items. The fiber is used because of its so many features and characteristics which help to convert it into a final product.
The fiber also available and cheap cost fiber then others natural fiber. It’s obtained from the mature capsule of the cotton plant, with leaves and flowers. So here are the fiber characteristics of cotton.

1. Fiber Length: Fiber length is one of the important fact of fiber, it indicates that the ability of use of this fiber. Generally the fiber length means the distance between the ends and beginning points of a fiber. The fiber length depends upon on several factors such as which types fiber it is, its maturity and so on. We can measure of a fiber length in 3 ways and they are:

• Average length: By a certain amount (number) of fiber
• Effective length: This is the average length of the longer fiber of a bundle
• Staple length: Fiber length as assumed by expert person

Fiber length impacts on several factors and they are:

• Spinning limit of a fiber
• Yarn evenness
• Luster of the product
• Yarn strength
• Handle of the product
• Yarn hairiness
• And the last one is productivity of the fiber

When you buy cotton fiber then you should check the length of the fiber which helps to increase your industry productivity. There are some lengths groupings of cotton fibers are currently used to check the right fiber.

• Short staple                       : 1” or less
• Medium staple                   : 1-1/32” to 1-1/8”
• Long staple                        : 1-5/32 to 1-3/8”
• Extra long staple                : 1-13/32” and above

2. Fiber Strength: Fiber strength is another big factor of fiber characteristics. If fiber strength is low then your required need then it will not work properly and your productivity will low and also your industry must hampered for this. Generally fiber strength means “The capacity of a fiber to support a load at break”. Strength is very often the dominating characteristics. Very weak cotton tends to rupture during processing both in blow room and carding process. Low strength of short fiber also responsible for creating short fibers and consequently deteriorate yarn quality. So the fiber must be strong and yet extremely flexible. The minimum strength for a textile fiber is approximately 6CN/Tex. Here is the table that is express the strength of cotton fiber.

Strength (Gm/Tex)	Description
Less than 21	Very Weak
22 to 24	Weak
25 to 27	Medium
28 to 30	Strong
31 to Higher	Very strong

3. Fiber Fineness: Fiber fineness is one of the most important parameter to determining the fiber quality and its characteristics. Fiber fineness expresses that how many fibers are present in the cross section of a yarn in a given thickness.

Effect of Fiber Fineness: Fiber fineness effect on different area of yarn and also create problem in producing yarn from fiber. The fiber fineness influences primarily in Spinning limit, Yarn strength, Yarn evenness, Yarn fullness, Drape of the fabric product, Luster, Handle and the Productivity of the process.

Fineness is measured in micronaire value (MIC). The higher MIC value the fiber regards as coarser.  Here is the Rating table of MIC value.

MIC Value	Fineness
Less than 3	Very fine
3.0 to 3.6	Fine
3.7 to 4.7	Medium
4.8 to 5.4	Coarse
5.5 to Above	Very coarse

4. Maturity of Fiber: The maturity of a cotton fiber is the degree of cell wall thickening. The degree of cell wall thickening describes as the amount of cellulose that has been deposited inside of the fiber during its development stage. A fully mature fiber has a well developed thick cell wall. On the other hand, an immature fiber has a very thin cell wall. The fiber is to be considered as mature fiber when the cell wall of the moisture swollen fiber represents 50-80% of the round cross section as immature when it represents 30-40%, as dead when it presents less than 25%.

Unripe fibers have neither adequate strength nor adequate longitudinal stiffness. The immature fiber lead to Neps formation, Loss of yarn strength, Less fineness, Yarn hairiness, Variation in dye shade, White spots in dyed fabric, Processing difficulties and many more.

5. Length Uniformity: Length uniformity means the evenness of the individual fibers length and diameter. The length uniformity of fiber impact on

• Yarn irregularity
• Ends down
• High wastage in combing process
• High fly liberation and machine contamination

There are two methods are use to measure the fiber length uniformity.

• Uniformity Ration (U.R.) = (50% span length/2.5% span length) X 100%
• Uniformity Index (U.I.) = (Mean length/UHML) X 100%

6. Fiber cleanness: The fiber should be neat and clean. In addition to useable fibers, cotton stock contains foreign matter of various kinds. Fiber also contains following garbage which impact negative effect on production process.

• Vegetable matter: Husk portion, seed fragments, stem fragments, leaf fragments and wood fragments.
• Mineral material: Earth, sand, dust, coal etc.
• Other foreign matter: Metal fragments, cloth fragments, packing materials etc.
• Metal parts can causes fires or damage card clothing
• Vegetable matter can lead to drafting disturbances, yarn breaks, filling up of card clothing etc.
• Mineral material can causes deposits, high wear rates in machines.

Today, foreign fibers have become nightmare for the spinner in industrialized countries. The amount of foreign particles is already taken into account in grading. Here is the table of accepted range of foreign materials to the bale (American Cotton).

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 more	Very dirty

7. Color of Fiber:Color is particularly important as a measure of how well a yarn of 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. 

8. Fiber Elongation: Fiber elongation is a measurement of the elastic behavior of the fibers on the bundle. The fibers are clamped in the bundle with a 1/8 inch distance between the clamps. The first pair of clamp of stationary and the back pair of clamps is pulled away at a constant rate. The distance between the fibers extend before they break is recorded and expressed as a percent of elongation.

Elongation is three in types:

• Permanent elongation: That part of the extension through which the fiber does not return on relaxation.
• Elastic elongation: That part of the extension through which the fiber does return.
• Breaking elongation: The maximum possible extension of the fiber until it breaks that means the permanent elongation and the elastic elongation together.

9. Stiffness of Fiber: Fiber stiffness plays an important role, mainly when rolling, revolving and twisting movements are involved. A fiber that is too stiff has a difficulty in adapting to the movements. Fiber stiffness is dependent upon fiber substance and also upon the relationship between fiber length and fiber fineness. The stiffness ratio of fiber can measure fiber length/fiber diameter.

Reference Book: Technology of Yarn by Md. Milon Hossain

Authors Bio:

Fakharuddin Manik is the Founder and Cheap Editor of Jazzylook.com and Textiledegree.com. He recently completed his B.Sc. in Textile Engineering program from a renowned university. He is a professional Blogger, Affiliate Marketer and SEO specialist. He usually writes about fashion, lifestyle, health tips, textile education and blogging. He also interested anything about blogging and technology. You can follow him at Facebook and Twitter.