An Instrument for Determining the Average Fiber Linear Density (Fineness) of Cotton Lint Samples

Abstract

No satisfactory technology has emerged for routine rapid measurement of fiber linear density at commercial speed for the cotton industry. This paper introduces the CottonscanTM instrument, a new technology designed to undertake this task. An inter-laboratory trial of the Cottonscan TM system to ascertain the performance of the technology is described. Overall, the 95% confidence limit for a single measurement was estimated to be ±10.4 mtex. Further, spinning trial results have confirmed that unlike the Micronaire value, average fiber linear density obtained from the CottonscanTM correlate well with measured yarn properties. These data indicate that the CottonscanTM instrument can be usefully employed to determine average fiber linear density, an important fiber quality parameter which can be a useful additional tool for the spinner in predicting yarn properties.

An assessment of alternative cotton fibre quality attributes and their relationship with yarn strength

“…The location is a semi-arid environment with grey Vertosol soil (Isbell 2002). Details of, and some data from, Expt 1 were previously reported in Long et al (2010). Both experiments employed a randomised complete block design with genotypes as treatments, with two replications.…”

“…Fibre samples (15-20 g each) were also subjected to an airdriven piston coring instrument (Abbott et al 2010) to makẽ 300 mg of 2-mm-long fibre snippets. Some snippets were tested for maturity ratio using the CSIRO polarised light microscopy instrument SiroMat (5 mg of snippets per test).…”

“…Some snippets were tested for maturity ratio using the CSIRO polarised light microscopy instrument SiroMat (5 mg of snippets per test). Samples were also tested for gravimetrically determined linear density (mtex) using the CSIRO Cottonscan instrument (Naylor and Purmalis 2005; Abbott et al 2010). Cottonscan requires an accurately weighed sample of~80 mg, which is suspended in a liquid allowing digital fibre images to be obtained.…”

“…Prototype instruments have also been developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Cottonscan (Abbott et al 2010) was developed to rapidly and directly measure linear density, being a modified, automated version of the cut-and-weigh method (ASTM International 2010a). To measure fibre maturity, the Siromat instrument (Gordon and Phair 2005) was developed as an alternative to assess smaller samples (5 mg).…”

“…Indeed, a commercially available device based on laser photometry, called the Sirolan Laserscan (ASTM International 2010c), was developed in the 1990s to rapidly measure the diameter of textile fibres, mainly wool fibres. This instrument was also demonstrated to effectively and quickly (<1 min) measure the average fibre width of enough cotton fibres (~1000 snippets) to represent a classing sample, and thus have commercial potential (Long et al 2010). However, no work has been reported relating yarn performance with such a measure of cotton fibre width.…”