Compact Ring Yarn, Eli Twisted Yarn, and Air Vortex Yarn are spinning systems that produce yarn with different structures and properties. In this case, 30's Ne 100% cotton yarns were produced using these spinning systems, and single jersey knitted fabrics were created on a single jersey knitting machine. Several fabric properties were studied and compared, including bursting strength, abrasion resistance, pilling, and drapability.

Compact Spinning

Compact spinning is considered a revolution in ring spinning technology. It is known for offering superior yarn quality and better utilization of raw materials. In traditional ring spinning, fiber migration is primarily caused by tension differences among fibers during yarn formation. When a thin, ribbon-like bundle of fibers is twisted into a roughly circular shape, the fibers at the edges of the bundle experience tension, while those in the middle are compressed unless there is excessive yarn tension. To alleviate this stress, fibers under tension attempt to shorten their path within the yarn, while compressed fibers try to lengthen it. This results in fibers deviating from their perfect helical path and migrating between layers of the yarn.

In compact spinning, tension differences between fibers during twist insertion are smaller than in ring spinning due to the elimination of the spinning triangle. Consequently, fiber migration in compact yarns is expected to be less than in conventional ring-spun yarns. The elimination of the spinning triangle, achieved by incorporating a condensing zone after the drafting system, has opened up new possibilities in ring spinning. Initially, compacting methods were primarily used for fine weaving yarns made from combed cotton. However, compact yarns have now found applications in various yarn sectors due to their reduced fiber migration. The Elite process, known for its flexibility, has played a pivotal role in this development.

Eli Twist spinning

Eli Twist Yarns are essentially Compact Ring Double Yarns, where doubling occurs in the ring frame, and the resulting yarn is single-wound. This technology was developed and perfected by Suessen Corporation and is commonly used for high-end shirting fabric production. Eli Twist spinning combines compact spinning and twisting in a single operation, resulting in a two-ply yarn with identical twist directions in both yarn legs. The twist coefficient of Eli Twist Yarns falls between that of a single yarn and the ply-twist coefficient of a conventional S/Z two-ply yarn.

Eli Twist Yarns have a very smooth yarn structure, a closed yarn surface, and a circular yarn cross-section. These yarns exhibit high regularity, extremely low hairiness (especially with long fibers), high breaking load, low pilling tendency, and are suitable for splicing.

These spinning technologies, including Compact Spinning and Eli Twist Spinning, offer different advantages and characteristics, making them suitable for various textile applications and contributing to the production of high-quality fabrics.

Air Vortex


Air vortex spinning is the one of the latest high speed spinning which has the industrial success even on 100 % cotton yarn and at a delivery speed of 400 to 450 m/min on medium count range. It has 3 to 4 times more speed than rotor and 20 times more speed than ring frame. This yarn has got ring yarn like structure on visual observation. Vortex yarn has got two part structure which can be simply revealed by untwisting a vortex yarn by hand. None of the conventional twist measurement methods are suitable for vortex yarn. The air vortex spinning method takes drawn cotton clean sliver and drafts it to the desired yarn count using a 4 rollers / apron drafting system. The drafted fibres are then sucked into a nozzle where a high speed vortex air current wraps the fibres around the outside of a hollow stationary spindle. A vacuum around the base of the spindle acts to comb out shorter fibres and neps. Fibres are pulled down a shaft that runs through the middle of the spindle. Yarn twist is inserted as the fibres swirl around the apex of the spindle before being pulled down the spindle shaft. The productivity of air vortex yarn comes through its delivery speed, which it spins yarn directly from sliver and the fact that yarn is wound and cleared directly onto a package.


Materials and Methods


Materials


For this study, 30 Ne (100%) cotton yarns from three different spinning systems namely Ring Compact, Eli Twisted and Air Vortex were knitted in single jersey machine (Dia: 25", Gauge: 24, No. of Needle: 1944, loop length: 4.4mm, speed: 28 rpm) and the properties of knitted fabrics were studied and compared. The Knitted fabrics were coded as Fl, F2 and F3 for the Ring Compact, Eli Twisted and Air Vortex yarn knitted fabrics respectively.


Methods


Bursting strength

Hydraulic bursting strength tester is used to test the bursting strength of knitted fabrics. The pressure is indicated by the tester pressure gauge. Since the rubber diaphragm requires a certain pressure to stretch it, corrections are made by doing a blank test.


Fabric abrasion test

Martindale abrasion fabric Tester is used to test the abrasion resistance of the fabrics. It uses the principles of two simple harmonic motions working at right angles. The knitted sample was cut into 40mm diameter and subjected to a load of 200 gms weight. The loss in weight of the samples was calculated after visual examination of the fabrics.


AR%= 100

Where AR stands for Abrasion Resistance.


Pilling test

Pills are small knots or balls of mixture of large number of small fibres accumulated at the surface of the fabric and entangled by the mild frictional action during processing or wearing. These are tested through the 1.e.1 pillbox tester. Pills are soft, firmly held on the surface of the material. A piece of fabric measuring 127X127mm is stitched so as to be a firm fit when placed round a rubber tube of 152mm long, 32mm outside dia and 3mm thick. The cut ends of the fabric are covered by cellophane tape. Four such tubes encircled by the fabrics are placed in the pillbox tester (229 X 229 X 229mm), which has

inner lining with cork. The box is then rotated at 60 rpm for 5 hours. The extent of pilling is assessed visually by comparison with the arbitrary standards, which are given in the table.


Drapability

Drapability of a fabric is determined using Drape meter and is expressed in terms of Drape Co-efficient. A circular specimen of diameter 254mm is supported on a circular disc of diameter 127mm. When doing so, the unsupported area of the fabric drapes over the edge of the supporting disc. The drape co-efficient, F is the ratio between the projected area of the draped specimen and its undraped specimen and its undraped area, after the deduction of the area of the supporting disc.


Ws = Weight of the paper whose area is equal to the projected area of the specimen,

Wd = Weight of the paper whose area is equal to the area of the supporting disc,

WD = Weight of the paper, whose area is equal to the area of the specimen,

F = Drape co-efficient


The thickness of the paper to trace the outline must be uniform. The small value of F indicates better Drapability of the fabric and the large values of F indicate the bad Drapability.


Results and Discussion



Bursting Strength

With high imperfection, the F3 shows low bursting strength than the other two fabrics. The F2 has the highest strength due to high tenacity and uniformity.


 

Abrasion resistance

The table shows F1 and F2 fabric have significance difference and has the low abrasion resistance due to easy migration. F3 fabric has high abrasion resistance due to the presence of wrapper fibres, which resist the movement of fibres during abrasion.


Pilling

The extent of pilling is assessed visually by comparison with the arbitrary standards. The F1 and F2 fabrics are almost having equal amount of pills and F3 fabric produces high pills due to high number of the wrapper fibres and its configuration.


Drapability

F3 is having high drape coefficient when compared to F1 and F2 fabrics. There is no significant difference in drape between F1 and F2 fabrics.


Conclusion


The Eli twist yarn fabric has good bursting strength than compact yarn followed by air vortex yarn. Abrasion resistance of Eli twist yarn fabric and compact ring yarn fabric are better than air vortex yarn fabric. Drapability of Eli twist yarn fabric is found to be good. It shows drape co-efficient of 0.254 followed by air vortex yarn fabric shows drape co-efficient of 0.257 and at last drape co-efficient of air vortex yarn fabric is 0.332. Pilling is found to be high in case of vortex spun yarn fabric. The vortex spun yarn fabric shows bulky appearance and harsh feel than the other two fabrics. We found that knitted fabric made by Eli twisted yarn is better than other two.


This article was originally published in the Textile Review magazine, January, 2013 issue, published by Saket Projects Limited, Ahmedabad.


About the Author:


Tanveer Malik and Shivendra Parmar are Faculties at the Department of Textile Technology of Shri Vaishnav Institute of Technology and Science.


Mahesh Pipliya, Ravi Pratap Singh, Ravindra Sahu, Pratiksha Soni and Pyiyanka Shrivastav are students of the Department of Textile Technology of Shri Vaishnav Institute of Technology and Science.