Definitions Fibers, Filaments, Spinning

Until the end of the 19th century all yarns were based on natural fibers, such as cotton and wool all these fibers are thin (10-100 pm) and short (2-30 cm). 

For continuity in a yam the fibers must be twisted. This is the process we call spinning - producing yarn fi-om fibers, for example on a spinning wheel - but industrial equipment has been developed for spinning on a larger scale. More than 50% of the world s yarn production is based on fibers. Cotton is still fiber material number one, being used in pure cotton yams but also in blends with synthetic fibers. 

One natural fiber has a much greater length silk. About 1000 m of fiber quality can be unwound from one cocoon, and such filaments are combined into a yam. 

This introduces the word filament - a fiber of (almost) infinite length. And we have met the first spinning machine, the silkworm. Please note that spinning has a second meaning here the production of continuous filaments all synthetic fibers are spun as continuous filaments. 

Strictly speaking, one should distinguish between fiber and filament a fiber has a limited length and a filament is essentially endless. To avoid misunderstanding, synthetic fibers with a limited length are in most cases called staple fibers . It 

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Fabrics are two-dimensional materials made from fibers. Their primary purpose is to cover things and they are commonly used in clothes, carpets, curtains, and upholstery. The motive for covering may be aesthetic, thermal, or acoustic. Fabrics are made out of or twisted bundles of fibers. The spinning of yams can occur in two ways staple fibers can be twisted into a thread ( spun yam ) or monofilaments can be twisted into a similar usable thread ( filament yam or continuous filament yam ). All these definitions are important in order to understand the conversation of the fiber industry. 

Tow to [ME, fr. OE tow- spinning akin to ON to tuft of wood for spinning, OE tawian to prepare for use] (14c) n. A large strand of continuous manufactured fiber filaments without definite twist, collected in loose, rope-like form, usually held together by crimp. Tow is the form that most manufactured fiber reaches before being cut into staple. It is often processed on tow-conversion machinery into tops, shver. 

Staple sta-p9l [ME, fr. ME estaple, fr. MD stapel emporium] (14c) n. Natural fibers or cut lengths from filaments. The staple length of natural fibers varies from less than 1 in. as with some cotton fibers to several feet for some hard fibers. Manufactured staple fibers are cut to a definite length, from 8 in. down to about 1-0.5 in. (occasionally down to 1 in.), so that they can be processed on cotton, woolen, or worsted yarn spinning systems. The term staple (fiber) is used in the textile industry to distinguish natural or cut length manufactured fibers from filament. 

Can you image that we can reach from the earth to the moon with a total weight of 4.16 g ultra microfiber But it is tme. This microfiber contains about 40,000 polymer molecules in its cross section [44]. Textile Terms and Definitions [44] simply describes ultra microfiber as fibers or filaments with linear densities of approximately 1.0 dtex or less. By the conjugate spinning process, we can obtain different ultrafine fibers, like Sea Island type, separation type, and multilayer type (Fig. 2.17). 

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