10 Facts About Fabric

I absolutely adore fabric!  Whether silk, or satin, damask or linen,  it adds so much to a room; it creates a feel; it is part of history….fabric is so interesting! And it is never to be overlooked when designing or decorating a space.

Here are some interesting facts about fabric that I think are cool and even useful!
1)  Flax is the earliest known natural textile fabric seen used in about 5000 BC. Flax is the material used to make linen which is seeing a huge come back today in drapery and upholstery.

2)  There is evidence that cotton and wool were used to create natural fabrics in about 3000 BC and evidence of silk use in 2500 BC in China.

3)  China is still the largest maker and exporter of silk in the world and has been for 100’s of years.

4)  The earliest evidence of fabric textiles has been found in Turkey, Egypt and Israel.

5)  The creation of man-made fibers has only been within the last 100 years.  Rayon, was the first man-made fiber created in 1910 and it was called ‘artificial silk’. Viscose is the most common form of Rayon.

6)  Microfiber or Ultrasuede was invented over 20 years ago in Japan.  Microfiber is the thinnest of all man-made fibres, even finer than silk.  it is 100 times finer than a human hair.

7)  Acrylic is a man-made fiber that has a soft, wool-like hand, is machine washable and has excellent color retention.  It is often an additive to textiles to take advantage of these properties.

8)  Nylon is also man-made and was first produced in 1938.  It has high strength, excellent resilience and superior abrasion resistance.  Nylon replaced silk stockings for women in the early part of the 20th century.

9)  The highest quality cotton still comes from Egypt.
10)  Bamboo is a grass that has been used to create a fabric that hangs much like a heavy linen.  Interestingly it has natural wicking ability that pulls moisture away from the skin so it can be useful in reducing moisture related or dour.  It also has natural anti-bacterial qualities.  And it is sustainable as bamboo grows quickly and doesn’t need pesticides to thrive.

Determination of energy consumption for chosen yarn

In order to obtain the specific energy consumption of any yarn, each an every machine in the spinning operations right from the bale opener and the approach should be repeated for the rest of the machine/step.

The Approach

In order to obtain the specific energy consumption of any yarn, a simple approach was developed. Since a manufacturing line contains many steps/machines, the approach is explained here for the frst machine which is outlined as the bale opener and the approach should be repeated for the rest of the machine/step.

According to this approach, raw material used for each machine should be first found and then the operating time of each machine obtained. Using the operating time and actual power of manufacturing machines, the energy consumption of each machine during manufacturing could easily be calculated.

Formulas to determine energy consumption

The amount of raw material R1 (kg) which will be processed in the first machine (bale opener) can be found by using the total waste ratio WTot (%) and mass of the specific yarn, M (kg) as

Operating time for the first machine, t₁ (hour), can be determined as follows,

where; L₁ (kg/h) is the manufacturing rate of the machine, n₁ is the number of machines used and N₁ (%) is the mechanical efficiency of this machine. With given parameters, the electrical energy, E₁ (kWh), used for the first machine can be obtained by

Here, N₁ (kW) is the installed power of the first machine N_E1 (%) is the energy efficiency concerned. After calculating the energy consumption of each step, the total energy consumed for operating the machines, E_M(kWh), can easily be calculated by the following equation.

where E_i is the energy consumption of blow room (E₁; energy for bale opener, E₂; energy for cleaner, E₃; energy for mixer etc.), E_Ca is the energy consumption of carding, E_D is the energy consumption of drawing, E_Co is the energy consumption of combing, E_R is the energy consumption of roving, E_S is the energy consumption of spinning, E_W is the energy consumption of winding step, i represents the relevant individual machine and n is the total number of machines in the blow room.

Energy consumption of compressors for the frst machine, E_A1 is found as

where C₁ (m3/h) is the compressed air needed per hour, N_A (kWh/m3) is the unit power for compressors which can be determined by dividing the installed power of the compressor by the compressed air capacity. Total energy consumption for providing compressed air in general,

and here again j represents the relevant machine and m is the total number of machines that need compressed air in the production line of specific yarn.

Energy used for air conditioning during yarn production E_C is

where, E’_C expresses the total energy consumption of the air conditioning system in one month while G is the monthly yarn production in kg. Similarly, the energy consumption for illumination, E_il (kWh) is found as

Here; E’il is the total monthly energy usage of lamps needed for illumination.

Consequently; the total energy consumption for any specific yarn can be calculated by summing up the relevant energy consumption equations given above as

Prediction of Energy Consumption

The energy consumption for 20 tex (Ne 30) combed ring yarn produced in the spinning mill under investigation was calculated by applying the procedure given above. Here; 3000 kg, 20 tex combed yarn is supposed to be produced in the ring spinning system at a speed of 17500 rev/min and with a twist factor (atex) of 3828.