Best Quality of India Technical Group

Fibre Dynamics in the Revolving-Flats Card

A Critical Review
C.A. Lawrence, A. Dehghani, M. Mahmoudi, B. Greenwood and C.Iype

School of Textile Industries

University of Leeds

Over the last 30 years numerous developments have taken place with the cotton
card. The production rate has risen by a factor of 5 with the main rotating
components running at significantly higher speeds. Triple taker-in rollers and
modified feed systems are in use, additional carding segments are fitted for
more effective fibre opening, and improved wire clothing profiles have been
developed for a better carding action. Advances in electronics have provided
much improved monitoring and process control. Most of these developments
have resulted in enhanced cleaning of cotton fibres, reduced neppiness of the
card web and better sliver uniformity.

Despite the various improvements made to the card a commonly held view is
that more is known about the cleaning processes on the card than about the
carding process itself . For instance, modern cards can achieve an overall
cleaning efficiency of 95%. It is well established that the cleaning efficiency of
modern taker-in systems is a round 30%, that the cylinder/flats action with the
latest wire clothing profiles gives 90% cleaning efficiency and that effective
cleaning is associated with lower neps in the card web .

However, even though the nep content and the sliver Uster CV% are used as
quality measures of carding performance they are not satisfactory indicators for
anticipating yarn quality. This is because some fibre arrangements in the sliver
may lead to nep formation and imperfections during up-stream drafting
processes .

In addition to the removal of trash and neps, important aspects of the carding
process in relation to yarn quality and spinning performance are the degree of
fibre individualisation, the fibre extent and the fibre hook configurations in the
sliver. With regard to these factors, increased production rate can reduce carding
quality . It is therefore of importance that a better understanding is established of
the effect that carding actions have on such quality parameters, particularly at
high production rates.

The most widely accepted view of how fibres are distributed within the card
under steady-state conditions is illustrated in Figure 1 . Reported studies into the
fundamentals of the carding process have largely been concerned with how the
principal working components of the card affect this distribution of fibre mass
and interact with the mass to achieve:trash and nep removal from cottons; the
disentangling of the fibre mass into individual fibres, with minimal fibre breakage;
and the alignment of the fibres to give a sliver suitable for drafting in down
stream processes.

These actions occur at the interface of the card components within the three
zones indicated in Figure 1. This paper therefore gives a critical review of
published research on the:

· mechanisms by which the fibre mass is broken down into individual fibres,

· mechanisms of fibre transfer between the component parts of the card

· effect of the saw-tooth wire geometry on these actions

Figure 1: Distribution of Fibre Mass during Short-Staple Carding

Q1: fibre mass transferred from cylinder to doffer

K : transfer coefficient

Q2: recycling layer

QL: fibre mass transferred from taker-in to cylinder

Qf : flat strips

Qo : operational layer

(where Q is mass per unit time)

Zone 1: Fibre-Opening
Separation and Cleaning of the Input Fibre Mass:

The taker-in has effectively a combing action , which results in the breakdown of
the tufts, consituting the fed fibre mass, into single fibres and smaller size tufts
(tuflets), and in the liberation of trash particles ejected from the mass flow by the
mote knives positioned below the taker-in. To effectively breakdown the fibre
mass feed into tuftlets with minimal fibre breakage, the taker-in wire has to be
coarse, with a low number of points per unit area (4.2 to 6.2 pcm-2) and not too
acute an angle of rake. The objective is to obtain gentle opening of the fibre
mass feed and easy transfer of the tuftlets to the cylinder. Angles of 80o – 85o
are used for short and medium length cottons to give effective opening and
cleaning. For longer cottons and synthetics, a 90o or negative rake may be
needed to facilitate gentler opening and satisfactory fibre transfer to prevent
lapping of the taker-in .

Fibres, usually very short fibres, which are not adequately held by the teeth or
present in the interspaces of the clothing are ejected causing fibre loss. However,
it is the mote knives that govern the amount of fibre to trash (i.e. lint) in the
extracted waste. Experimenting with the settings of two mote knives below the
taker-in, Hodgson found that the absence of the knives greatly increased the lint
content with little increase in trash. With the knives present, the best setting was
that which gave the least waste since increasing the amount of waste did not
improve cleaning. Artzt found that irrespective of teeth density and tooth angle
the waste increased with taker-in speed but the increase was attributed to higher
lint content.

It is reasonable to assume that the smaller the tuftlet size and the greater the
mass ratio of individual fibres to tuftlets the better the cleaning effect of the
taker-in. Supanekar and Nerurkar suggest that the takerin breaks down the fibre
feed into tuftlets of various sizes and mass, conforming to a normal frequency
distribution. In the case of cotton, some tuftlets may consist of only fibres whilst
others will contain seed or trash particles embedded among the fibres, these
tuftlets constituting the heavier end of the distribution curve. Thus, the mean of
the distribution would depend on the trash content of the material, as well as on
the production rate, the taker-in speed and the wire clothing specification.
However, the authors did not report any data to support their ideas.

Little detailed information has yet been published on the mass variation of
tuftlets or on the relative proportion of discrete fibres to tuftlets resulting from
the combing action of the taker-in. Nittsu using photographic techniques studied
the effect of process variables on tuftlet size. It was found that the total number
of tuftlets decreases the closer the feed plate setting, the lower the feed rate, the
smaller the steeper rake of the saw-tooth clothing and the higher the licker-in
speed. Since th licker-in opens the batt into both tuftlets and individual fibres , a
decrease in the total number of tuftlets suggests an increase in the mass of
individual fibres. Liefeld calculated estimates of the opened fibre mass at
various stages through the blowroom and gives a value of 50mg for tuftlets on
the taker-in. Mills claims that the calculated optimum number of fibre per tooth
is one, and that this should be maintained at increased production rates by
increasing the taker-in speed. There is, however, the question of fibre damage at
high taker-in speeds.

Figure 2: Frequency distribution of tuftlet mass

N: Taker-in speed (rpm), P: Production rate (kg/hr)

Honold and Brown found no fibre damage occurred at speeds of up to 600

r/min. Krylov reports the absence of fibre breakage at speeds up to 1,380 r/min,
and Artzt’s work shows taker-in speeds to have a negligible effect on fibre
shortening and subsequently on yarn strength. In all cases cotton fibres of 26.5-
30.2 mm (2.5% span length) and 3.8 – 4.9 micronaire were processed. The level
of fibre breakage, however, would seem to depend on production rate and the
batt fringe setting to the licker-in. High production rates achieved by increased
sliver counts and a close setting of the batt fringe result in significant fibre
breakage.No fundamental studies have been reported on the forces involved in
the fibre-wire interaction of revolvingflat card components. However, Li and etal
report a simulated study of fibre-withdrawal forces for wool in high-speed roller-
clearer cards. Although impact forces could cause damage , it was found that
card component speeds had no significant effect on the withdrawal-force, and
that fibre configuration and entanglement were the important factors.

The importance of producing small size tuftlets is evident form the various
components fitted in the fibreopening zone on modern short-staple cards. Saw-
tooth wire covered plates, termed combing segments, fitted below the taker-in or
built into the taker-in screen are claimed to give improved trash removal.
Reportedly , the stationary flats fitted between the taker-in and the revolving flats
provide extra opening of the tuftlets transferred to the cylinder from the taker-in.
They also act as a barrier to large, hard, trash particles such as seed coats,
protecting the wire of the revolving flats from damage, particularly at high
cylinder speeds. This enables finer wire to be used for the revolving flats and
thereby improves the cleaning effect of the interaction between cylinder and
revolving flats. The chances are also reduced of longer length fibres becoming
deeply embedded in the revolving flats to become part of the flat strips. These
attachments are widely accepted by the industry as beneficial, particularly at high
production speed. However, there is no published systematic study of their
effectiveness in reducing tuft size, and the effect of stationary flats on the
recycling layer, Q2, is unknown. The little information that is available attempts to
illustrate the effectiveness of these components on yarn quality, but there is no
evidence of analytical rigour in the way the data were obtained.

Fig 3. shows the effect of the combing segment and the stationary flats on dust
deposits in rotor spinning and on the imperfections in several types of ring spun
yarn. The figure includes values for the effect of stationary flats above the doffer,
but this will be considered in a later section. It would appear that the added
components in the taker-in region might well reduce the dust deposit in the rotor,
but the results showing improvements in yarn quality are not convincing, and in
all cases the stationary flats above the doffer appear the most effective. Leifeld
reports that the cylinder – revolving flats carding action occurs when the fibre
mass delivered to the cylinder is in a highly opened state.

Tandem cards are said to give a high standard of carding with low nep and trash
levels in the card web. This is because a uniform web of almost discrete fibres is
fed to the second cylinder of the tandem card and closer revolving flat settings
with higher cylinder speeds can be used . Single taker-in systems, even with
combing segments and stationary flats, cannot give as high a degree of opening.
However, Leifeld reports that a triple taker-in system facilitates high taker-in
speeds and, fitted to a single-cylinder card, feeds a uniform web of discrete
fibres to the cylinder, thereby offering a more cost-effective process than the
tandem card, but no comparative data for the two types of card are given.
Although it may be reasoned that a triple taker-in action should improve nep
removal, it is of importance to compare the web qualities with regard to dust and
trash content, the level and type of fibre hooks, and the degree of fibre
parallelism since these greatly influence yarn quality.

Figure 3: Effect of Combing Segment and Stationary Flats

Contradicting the triple taker-in approach, Mills states that the fibrous material
fed to the card should not be broken down into individual fibres by the taker-in
system. This is because the fibres would remain largely disoriented with a high
proportion of them lying transversely to the direction of mass flow when
transferred to the cylinder and subsequently to the revolving flats. This can result
in fibre loss during transfer to the cylinder and an unevenness of the fibre mass
across the cylinder width, causing neps to be formed and degrading the carding
action between the cylinder and the revolving flats.

It is claimed that good carding requires a thin, uniformly distributed sheet of well-
opened tuftlets fed to the cylinder from the taker-in. Fujino reports results that
would appear to confirm the view that as the level of opening increases through
faster taker-in speed, the degree of fibre parallelism on transfer to the cylinder
decreases. The nep level in the card web was, however, observed to decrease
noticeably with increased taker-in speed. This was attributed to the reduced
speed ratio of the cylinder and taker-in. Artzt found that reducing the takerin/
cylinder draft ratio from 2.4 to 1.4 caused yarn imperfections to increase. In
contrast to these findings Harrison states that increasing taker-in speed did not
affect the nep level in the card web, the exception being for low micronaire
cottons. The apparent contradictions in these results suggest that a better
understanding of the transfer mechanism may be needed which takes into
account fibre properties. Fibre Mass Transfer to Cylinder

Two contrasting views have been reported on the mechanism of fibre transfer.
Oxley suggests that the fibre mass on the taker-in is ejected between the
cylinder wire and the back plate. Whereas Varga believes that the fibre mass is
stripped from the taker-in in the following way. In the feed to the card, tufts and
fibres lie randomly and by the action of the taker-in are brought into length-wise
orientation in the direction of the roller rotation. The trailing ends of newly
formed tuftlets protrude above the taker-in wire and are easily stripped by the
cylinder wire clothing. This implies that the transfer involves a reversal of the
leading and trailing ends of the fibres. Further orientation and parallelism of the
fibre mass is thought to occur during the transfer onto the cylinder. No
experimental work has been published which specifically involves a study of the
transfer of fibres from the taker-in to the cylinder. Therefore it has yet to be
established whether at the interface, the cylinder, which has the faster surface
speed, strips the fibre mass with its clothing or the taker-in, through the action of
centrifugal forces, ejects the tuftlets and single fibres onto the cylinder, or a
combination of both occurs. It is also of interest to determine if the airflow in the
region assists the fibre mass transfer. Whatever the case, the fibre mass is likely
to be subjected to an uncontrolled drafting effect, which could introduce
irregularities in the mass flow.

Zone 2: The Fibre Carding Zone

In the carding zone, it is the interaction of the fibre mass and the wire-teeth
clothing of cylinder and flats that fully individualises the fibres and gives
parallelism to the fibre mass flow. In considering how fibres enter and are
individualised in the carding zone, Oxley suggests that tuftlets are not strongly
held on the cylinder clothing because the tooth angle faces the direction of
cylinder rotation. They are, thus, easily removed and more firmly held by the
opposing teeth of the flats. It is therefore assumed that as a flat enters the
carding zone it becomes almost fully loaded with fibres, the airflow within the
region assisting the fibre mass transfer. Having been stripped of fibre mass,
subsequent following areas of the cylinder wire clothing move past the fully
loaded flat and proceed to comb fibres from the flat, carrying them towards the
doffer. The action of combing causes the fibres to be hooked around the cylinder
wire points and prevents them from being easily removed by other flats.

Debar and Watson’s experiments of the movement of radioactive tracer fibres

through a miniature card showed that some fibres caught by the flats were often
only removed by the cylinder-wire clothing after many revolutions of the cylinder.
Varga reports an alternative view to Oxley’s, stating that two types of action
occur at the cylinder-flats interface. First, a carding action where the upper layer
of a tuftlet or a loosely opened fibre group is caught and held by the flats whilst
simultaneously the bottom layer is sheared away by the fast moving cylinder
surface. This action causes the top to hang from the flats and to contact
subsequent parts of the cylinder wire surface resulting in the second action
which is combing, where the wire clothing of the cylinder hooks single or a small
group of fibres and combs them from the top layer. A second flat catches the
bottom layer on the cylinder and the actions are repeated. In this way tuftlets or
groups of fibres are separated into individual fibres.

By making abrupt changes in the colour of the fibre mass fed to the card, Oxley
demonstrated that tuftlets from the load on a given flat are carried forward by the
cylinder clothing and separated into individual fibres over a small number of
preceding flats, typically 4. It was concluded that the interchange of fibres
between cylinder and flats does not occur over the full carding zone. Sengupta ]
made measurements of the carding/combing forces and showed that essentially
these actions were on average confined to the first ten working flats.
Figure 4: Relation of Flat Load and Working Time

A study by Hodgson showed that moving in the direction of the cylinder rotation,
a given flat acquires two-thirds of its final load directly it comes into position over
the cylinder. The load then increases exponentially with time, reaching nine-
tenths of the final value within 6-8 minutes. Completion of the load takes place
slowly during the remainder of the working time. See Fig 4. As shown in the
figure, with flats moving in the reverse direction the load first increases rapidly
with time and then slows until the flat is about to leave the working area. Here it
encounters the fibre layer being transported on the cylinder surface from the
taker-in. The flat receives a sudden addition of fibre mass to become fully loaded,
and, in agreement with other results , the load weighs more than for the forward
direction of motion. Contrary to Oxley’s conclusions, it was found that 30% of the
final load on a given flat resulted from fibre interchange between flats and
cylinder over the full carding zone.

It may be reasoned that the number of flats involved in separating a tuftlet

depends on the tuftlet size, the mass flow rate and the flat setting. Large tuftlets
will be pressed into the cylinder wire during the carding action, whereas small
tuftlets will be more easily carded and will remain at the top of the cylinder wire
teeth. The larger the tuftet, the higher the production rate and the closer the flat
settings, the greater the number flats involved in the separation of a given tuftlet.
Bogdan reports that flats tend to load quickly at the beginning of their cycle of
contact with the cylinder. This, however, is only a partial loading, since the fibre
mass tends to resist more fibres entering the space but, in the case of cotton,
not the leaf and trash particles present.

Analysis of the trash in cotton flat strips showed that initially the percentage of
trash in a given flat strip is low and increases slowly during the first 10 minutes
of carding, then remains at almost a constant value . The final percentage
depends on the trash content of the cotton. For a fixed production rate, the
amount of flat strips was found to be directly proportional to the flat speed, but
provided the speed was such that the working time was not less than 10 minutes,
both the weight and composition of the flat strips remained approximately
constant. Feil claims that a high degree of air turbulence exists in the
flat/cylinder zone. A combination of centrifugal forces, mechanical contact with
the flat wire and air turbulence causes the trailing ends of fibres attached
individually to the cylinder clothing to vibrate and shake loose trash and dust
particles. Short fibres which cannot adequately cling to the cylinder clothing will
also be shaken free, and along with impurities become part of the flat strips.

Fibres that are deeply embedded in the flats, and cannot be reached by the
cylinder wires become flat strips. For this reason the closeness of the flats
setting to the cylinder is important. It may be assumed that closer flats/cylinder
setting and faster cylinder speeds will give more effective carding and combing
actions as described by Varga and thereby improve web quality through reduced
neps and trash . Cylinder diameters vary and Karasev showed mathematically
that for a given cylinder rotational speed the carding power will be greater for a
larger cylinder diameter with a higher number of working flats. However, because
of lower mechanical stresses, smaller cylinders can be rotated at higher speeds
than larger cylinders. The above advantage is therefore reduced the higher the
speed of the smaller cylinder. Artzt studying the influence of card clothing
parameters and cylinder speeds on yarn imperfections, report that the teeth
density of the flats and cylinder, and the speed of the cylinder must prevent
tuftlets lying within the spiral pitch of the cylinder clothing. If this occurs the
tuftlets generally become the thick places in the yarn. It was found that high
teeth densities and low cylinder speeds were as effective as lower teeth
densities and high cylinder speed. High teeth densities with high cylinder speeds
did not give effective carding, but no reason was reported for this.

Since the action of the cylinder in this region is to individualise fibres, the wire
clothing on the cylinder has a steeper rake and a higher point density than the
wire clothing of the flats. Thus, with closer settings and higher cylinder speeds
greater forces may be involved and may result in fibre breakage. However, the
work of Li indicates that the withdrawal forces needed to separate an entangled
fibre mass was largely dependent on the density of the fibre mass and the
contact angle fibres made with the wire clothing, than on the machine speeds.

Van Alphen reports that increasing cylinder speed causes more fibre breakage
than increasing taker-in speed and that this is reflected in the yarn properties.
Rotor yarn tenacity was reduced by up to 5% with increasing cylinder speeds
between 480 –600 r/min. Whereas ring yarns showed a 5% reduction for speeds
between 260 – 380 r/min and 10% at 600 r/min. The higher sensitivity of ring
yarns to fibre breakage was attributed to the negative effect of short fibres
during roller drafting. Krylov reports that no fibre shortening was observed for
cylinder speeds up to 380 r/min.

It may be reasoned that the smaller the tuftlets and the more parallel fibres in
tuftlets are to the direction of mass flow the lower the probability of fibre
breakage. Honold attributes fibre damage to the cylinder/flat interaction and
suggested that the degree of damage depends on the size of the tuftlets entering
the working area; the smaller the tuftlets, the closer the setting that can be used
and the lower the fibre breakage . Hodgson’s work showed fibre length is also an
important factor. For cottons, fibre breakage was only found to have occurred
when the staple length was greater than 25mm. Increasing the flat speed
appears to have no effect on fibre breakage. However, the amount of flat strips
increased proportionally with the flat speed and the mean fibre length of the
strips increased significantly. This means that faster flat speeds result in larger
amounts of useable fibre in the waste. Interestingly, when carding cottons,
immature fibres were not readily found in the flat strips. The coarser rigid fibres
seem more easily retained by the flats. The effectiveness of the carding and
combing actions within the cylinder/flats area is, inter alia, dependent on the
quantity of fibre mass on the cylinder, and this includes the recycling layer, Q2. It
is of interest therefore to consider how the Q2 is formed during fibre transfer
from cylinder to doffer, and its importance to the card web quality.

Zone 3: Cylinder / Doffer Interaction

Varga reports that the action of fibre mass transfer to the doffer is similar to the
transfer at the input to the cylinder-flats zone. The regions above and below the
line of closest approach of the cylinder to the doffer (i.e. the setting line) are
important to the mechanism of fibre mass transfer and the transfer coefficient, K.
The two regions may be termed the top and bottom co-operation arcs or top and
bottom zones. Simpson claims that transfer can occur in both zones and that
the particular region in which transfer actually occurs influences the fibre
configuration and the nep level of the card web, although cylinder-flats action is
more important in reducing neps. Which zone transfer occurs in is dependent on
the cylinder-doffer surface speed ratio, C/D. For high C/Ds, transfer occurs in the
top zone and results in a larger number of trailing than leading hook fibres and a
low nep level. The reverse occurs when transfer takes place in the bottom zone
owing to lower C/Ds. Simpson does not however say at what C/D value transfer
changes from one zone to the other. Although reference is made to other authors
who have proposed a mechanism for fibre transfer in the top zone, no
mechanism or experimental evidence is given to support the idea of fibre transfer
in the bottom zone. Lauber and Wulfhorst used laser-doppler anemometry and
high-speed cine photography to study fibre behaviour in the bottom zone, i.e. up
to110 mm below the setting line. Their findings showed no evidence of fibre
transfer within the bottom zone.

Since Morton and Summers’ work in 1949 other researchers have confirmed that
the values given in Table 1 for the five classes of fibre configuration observed in
slivers. It is of interest to note that the hooked lengths are greater for leading
than trailing hooks. Although, the calendar draft can be used to change the
relative proportions, Gosh and Bhaduri showed that the method of removing the
web from the doffer does not influence the propensity of any class of
configuration. It is the mechanism of transfer that is seen as principally
responsible for the shape fibres have in the sliver.

Table 1: Classification of Fibre Configuration in Card Sliver

Several studies have been reported on the fibre-mass-transfer mechanism. A

number used tracer fibres with one end of a fibre dyed a different colour from the
other. The reported findings suggest that fibre mass transfer occurs by fibres
acting independently and not as a web of fibres. Observations showed that prior
to transfer, nearly 70% of fibres on the cylinder had leading hooks, only 9% had
trailing hooks. On transfer the relative proportions changed as indicated in Table
2. Half the number observed underwent reversals, with greater than 70%
changing their configurations [e.g. leading hooks becoming trailing hooks]. Of
those that transferred without reversals ca 90% did so with a change of
configuration.

Table 2: Mode of Fibre Transfer from Cylinder to Doffer

Ghosh and Bhaduri report that tracer fibres were noted generally to go around
with the cylinder for several revolutions before being transferred by the doffer. On
occasions transfer only happened when the cylinder speed was increased. Debar
and Watson’s work with radioactive viscose tracer fibres showed that a fibre on
the cylinder wire passes the doffer up to a maximum 20 times before being
removed by the doffer, sometimes interchanging several times between the
cylinder and flats, during the 20 revolutions on the cylinder. Hodgson found that
cotton fibres make between 10 and 25 cylinder revolutions before being removed
by the doffer. With the continuity of fibre mass flow through the card, this means
that the doffer web is built up over many cylinder revolutions and that the
recycling layer, Q2, is comprised of multiple fractional layers of the fibre mass
transferred from taker-in to cylinder during these cylinder revolutions .

Figure 5: Mechanism of fibre transfer for trailing hook formationv

A proposed hypothesis for the mechanism of fibre transfer is illustrated in
Figure 5. Here the trailing ends of fibres are lifted from the cylinder surface by
centrifugal forces and become hooked around the teeth of the doffer clothing.
The frictional drag of the doffer clothing eventually removes these fibre from the
cylinder clothing. This mechanism only explains the formation, without reversal,
of trailing hooks in the doffer web. However, the importance to fibre transfer of
the relative angles and tooth lengths of the cylinder and doffer is self evident
from the figure. Baturin developed equations that showed the importance of
tooth angle and teeth density of the cylinder and doffer wires to the value of K
and thereby Q2. Other investigators have reported experimental data that verify
Baturin’s equations. It was found that the more acute the working angle of the
doffer wire compared to the cylinder wire, the higher the value of K, and the lower
Q2, and that higher teeth densities on the doffer increased K. These findings
would tend to suggest that the proposed mechanism is a principal action by
which fibres are removed from the cylinder. However, this mechanism of fibre
transfer does not explain the change of fibre configuration with reversals and the
formation of leading hooks in the doffer web. It also does not explain how fibres
forming the recycling layer, Q2, are subsequently removed, even though an input
layer of fibre mass is added to Q2 each time it passes the taker-in.

The above studies did not take account of the degree of fibre parallelism on the
cylinder prior to transfer, nor the number of fibres per tooth on the cylinder and
consequently the likelihood of fibre interaction during transfer. Fujino and Itani
used a microscopic technique to observe the orientation of fibres on the cylinder
surface above the taker-in and just before the doffer, and in the doffer web. They
found that fibres showed the highest degree of parallelism when on the cylinder
surface just above the doffer. The degree of parallelism decreases on transfer to
the doffer, and further deteriorates when the web is removed from the doffer to
form the sliver, even though the calendar draft helps to maintain some degree of
parallelism. Grimshaw and others report the use of fixed flats just before the
cylinder/doffer top transfer zone, to improve fibre parallelism in the card web.; up
to 20% reduction in fibre hooks and 25% improvement in fibre parallelism were
obtained in the card web, resulting in improved yarn properties. Figure 3 shows
that the fixed flats in this region are more effective in improving yarn properties
compared with the fixed flats above the taker-in. The action of the flats fitted
above the doffer is not fully understood. It is assumed that they tend to lift the
fibres to the tip of the cylinder wire for more effective transfer to the doffer,
particularly at high cylinder speed. Lauber and Wolfhorst , Kamogawa, report that
in this region aerodynamic forces affect the parallelism of the fibres and the way
they are transferred to the doffer. However, no details are given.

Owing to the higher speed and larger diameter of the cylinder, it is assumed that
during transfer in the top zone the fibres are more substantially affected by the
flow of air transported with the cylinder’s than by the doffer’s wire clothing. High-
speed photographs showed that in the bottom zone the main flow of fibre mass
was with the doffer at close to the doffer speed, even when the fibres were just
below the cylinderdoffer setting line. However, some fibres were seen to be free
of both the doffer and cylinder and tended to move with the air currents and
eventually with the motion of the cylinder surface. From the above discussion, it
can be seen that work is still needed to establish a more detailed understanding
of fibre mass transfer between the cylinder and doffer. The results of such work
may also help in better explaining how fibres remain on the cylinder to form the
recycling layer Q2.

Varga suggests that with fibre transfer in the top zone, the thicker layer of web
on the doffer surface protrudes above the doffer wire and into the gap setting
between doffer and cylinder. The faster moving cylinder wire clothing combs
through the doffer web and thereby pulls fibres back onto the cylinder surface.
De Swann showed that fibres can be readily transferred from the doffer to the
cylinder as well as from cylinder to doffer. In Hodgson’s study , changing
cylinder/doffer setting affected the neppiness of the web but did not affect K,
which seems to contradict Varga’s view. Baturin and Simpson however showed
that K will increase if the region of interaction between the cylinder and doffer is
reduced by decreasing the doffer or the cylinder diameter and this tend to
supports Varga’s suggestion for a combing and robbing action of the cylinder. It
is reasonable to assume that the combing action could lead to fibres in Class II
and IV (Table 1), but there is still no verified explanation of how fibres in Classes I,
III, and V are formed, with and without reversals.

Much of the research on the cylinder / doffer interaction concerns the effect of
machine variables on the size of Q2 (or the operational layer, Qo), on the web
quality and changes to the relative proportions of the classified configurations,
and on ultimately the yarn quality. Sing and Swani developed a Markovian model
for the carding process in order to determine the probabilities of fibre transfer
between cylinder and flats and cylinder and doffer, taking into account the
recycling of fibres. It was shown that the times spent by a fibre on the cylinder, Tr,
and in the flats/cylinder region, Td, are given by:

Tr = 1 / K and Td = Tr . Pf …………. (1)

Where K = Q1 / Qo and Pf = Qf / Qo

Reported values for K would seem to vary between 0.2% to 20% , depending on
doffer and cylinder speeds, on the relative profiles of the saw-tooth wire clothing,
and on the sliver count. Simpson suggests that fibre properties are also of
importance, in that there is a tendency for low micronaire cottons to give higher
cylinder loading and for fibres with low shear friction and good compression
recovery to result in higher K values. No physical explanation is given for these
findings and no other studies are reported on the effect of fibre properties.
Further work is therefore needed in this area.
Figure 6: Effect of Cylinder and Doffer Speed on K and Pf

A popular view is that a low fibre mass entering the cylinder/flats interface, i.e. a
low fibre load on the cylinder, results in better quality carding . This would seem
to imply that the higher the value of K the better the carding since less fibre mass
is recycling to be added to the mass transferred from the taker-in. However, there
are several ways of increasing K and not all of them result in improved carding
quality. Figure 6, shows that for a given cylinder speed and sliver count, increased
doffer speed increases K and reduces Pf , whereas keeping the doffer speed and
sliver count constant and increasing the cylinder speed increase both K and Pf .
For constant cylinder and doffer speeds, increased sliver count was found to
reduce K and Pf. If the same up stream machinery is used, then the best measure
of effective carding is the quality of the carded ring-spun yarns produced . Gosh
and Bhaduri’s work showed that for a fixed carding rate, with increasing doffer or
cylinder speed, K increases but Qo and the yarn imperfections decrease; no trend
was found with yarn tenacity or irregularity. Singh and Swani studied the
properties of yarns made from slivers corresponding to differing K and Pf values
and found that Pf was the more important of the two parameters, in that the
higher the value of Pf the better the yarn quality. Kaufman reports that the lighter
the fibre load is on the flats, the better the carding quality. Thus, the use of Pf
does not give an adequate understanding of the importance of the recycling layer
nor of the size of the fibre mass load at the cylinder/flats interface.
Figure 7: Effect of Doffer Speed on Carding Parameters

Baturin reports an alternative approach to the above in which the following

expression was derived for the number of cycles, Np, under steady state
conditions that fibres on the cylinder clothing make pass the flats before being
removed by the doffer:

Np = 1 + Vc/KVd ………….. (2)

Where K is the transfer coefficient

Vc and Vd are cylinder and doffer surface speeds (m/min).

Since this gives the number of times the recycling fibre mass is subjected to the
carding action, it may be a better indication than Pf of the importance of Q2.
From the expression, Np decreases when K increases by increasing doffer speed.
Figure 7 shows that for a constant production rate, web quality decreases when
Np decreases with doffer speed, even though the cylinder load decreases and a
high number of cylinder teeth per fibre is obtained. The last two parameters are
usually taken as indicative of good carding. Figure 8 shows the effect of
increased doffer speed and sliver count on web quality and there is a consistent
trend which suggests that increasing the production rate by increasing the sliver
count, instead of doffer speed, gives better web quality. With regard to sliver
irregularity, several investigators report theoretical and experimental studies
showing that increasing the recycling layer, Q2, reduces the short-term
irregularity.

Figure 8: Effect of Doffer Speed and Sliver Count on Web Quality

Karasev attempted to show experimentally the importance of Q2 by removing it

during carding using a suction extractor. It was found that without Q2 a large
proportion of the fibre mass transferred from the takerin became embedded into
the empty teeth of the cylinder clothing. Only the larger tuftlets and groups of
individual fibres would then be subjected to the carding and combing actions.
Hence, there is a greater chance of small groups of entangled fibres being
removed by the doffer. Q2 therefore acts as a support to new layers of fibre
mass being transferred form the taker-in, keeping the new fibre mass at the tips
of the cylinder wire teeth and thereby promoting the interaction of tuftlets with
the flats and cylinder clothing. This idea, however, does not facilitate an
explanation of the mechanism by which fibres leave the recycling layer to form
part of the doffer web, Q1 . Gupta suggest that the rotating cylinder could be
considered as a large centrifuge that would cause fibres, impurities and seed
fragments to migrate to the cylinder periphery and thereby make contact with the
flats clothing and, presumably, the doffer teeth.
However, no experimental verification of this hypothesis is reported. Many of the
authors have reported the effect of machine variables on fibre configurations
within the card sliver and several have related yarn properties to the observed
configurations. Generally it was found that for a fixed sliver count increasing the
carding rate by increasing the doffer speed, increased the number of minority
hooks and reduced the number of majority hooks, irrespective of cylinder speed.
However, for a given doffer speed, increased cylinder speed gave the reverse
trend for minority hooks, but no clear trend for majority hooks. Baturin and
Brown showed that increased cylinder speed decreases cylinder load owing to
the effect of centrifugal forces and Simpson showed that increased cylinder
speed also increased minority hooks and decreased majority hooks. Bhaudri
reports that when the fibres are forced nearer the surface of the cylinder teeth,
either by increasing the fibre load or increasing the centrifugal force on the
cylinder, the proportion of minority hooks increases. Simpson found that there
was a direct relation between yarn imperfections and increased occurrence of
minority hooks and that spinning end breakage rates and yarn imperfection
increased with increased card production speed owing to minority hooks. Gosh
and Simpson found that heavier slivers had fewer minority hooks. However, the
increased draft needed to process the heavier slivers into yarn led to increased
yarn imperfections.

Conclusions

1. The taker-in action separates the fed fibre mass into tuftlets and individual
fibres. Although it is reported that the taker-in action gives a normal mass
distribution of tuftlet sizes, this is speculation. Little research has been reported
on the effect of taker-in parameters, fibre properties and the blowroom process
on tuftlet size distribution and on the relative proportions of tuftlets to individual
fibres.

2. The perceived benefits of combing segments built into the taker-in under-
screen and of stationary flats fitted before and after the revolving flats are well
known, but only limited experimental findings have been reported to support the
use of these attachments. There are conflicting views on the benefits of triple
taker-in systems, concerning whether the fibre opening by such systems would
give a high misalignment of fibres to the direction of mass flow during transfer to
the cylinder and degrade the subsequent carding action. A better understanding
is therefore required of the fibre mass transfer from taker-in to cylinder, since the
surface speed ratio of these components is seen as a key factor in the proper
functioning of high production cards.

3. The cylinder-flats and cylinder-doffer interactions have been well researched.

Published findings show that each flat acquires two-thirds of its load at the
beginning of its cycle of contact with the cylinder, and that separation of a given
tuftlet occurs over a few flats. With regard to clothing parameters and cylinder
speed, high teeth densities and lower cylinder speeds gave similar results to the
converse arrangement. However, a high teeth density and cylinder speed did not
give effective carding. Results showed that high cylinder speeds caused more
fibre breakage than high taker-in speed.

4. A high cylinder to doffer speed reduces cylinder load, gives a higher K value
and a better web quality. Increasing doffer speed was also found to increase K,
but the web quality deteriorated. The reported mechanism of fibre transfer from
cylinder to doffer does not adequately explain the effect of the cylinder– doffer
speed ratio, or the various reported changes in fibre configuration during transfer.
Further work is therefore still needed in this area.

Best Quality of India Technical Group