High Volume Measurements of Cotton Maturity by a Customized Microscopic System

Abstract

Cotton maturity, the degree of development of the fiber wall relative to its perimeter, is one of the main cotton quality attributes because it directly or indirectly affects most of the other cotton fiber properties. Mature fibers usually possess greater strength and better resilience. The presence of immature fibers may cause excessive fiber damage and waste during processing and may lower yarn strength. Immature fibers have also been recognized as one of the principal causes of the formation of neps, which result in a rough and uneven appearance in yarns and fabrics. Due to their relatively low dye affinity, the immature fibers in most neps easily show up as imperfections known as white specks in a dyed fabric, which leads to large financial losses. Hence, information about cotton maturity is desirable for cotton breeders and growers to enhance cotton fibers and to textile manufacturers to improve their quality control.Despite the importance of maturity, assessing it remains a serious problem for the cotton industry. The micronaire test is the only widely used method for cotton maturity measurement available to the industry today. Micronaire results are a combination of maturity and gravimetric fineness [1]. Although it is efficient, it provides only a combined measurement on maturity and fineness [2], which is not particularly useful for critical evaluations of cotton maturity. 1 The cross-section of a cotton fiber contains measurable information directly related to the maturity of the fiber. Much research has been conducted using image analysis technology to measure cotton maturity and other parameters from cotton fiber cross-sections [3][4][5][6]. In general, the success of a cross-section method using image analysis relies on two techniques: fiber cross-sectioning and image segmentation. The USDA Southern Regional Research Center (SRRC) developed an effective, but time-consuming cross-sectioning method that includes sampling, embedding and sectioning procedures [7,8].Abstract Information about cotton maturity is desirable to cotton breeders and growers for cotton enhancement and to textile manufacturers for quality control. This paper reports on the development of a dedicated system that facilitates direct, fast and high volume measurements of cotton maturity from longitudinal views, and the experimental results. The system examines cotton fibers in a projected 2-D image to measure the variations in fiber width, which reveal the severity of fiber convolutions, and the fiber translucence that reflects the thickness of the secondary wall. This paper describes the methodology for extracting these features and how they relate to cotton maturity.

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

“…While Sirolan Laserscan has been available commercially since the 1990s, other technology has also been available to measure the width of textile fibres, such as the OFDA (BSC Electronics, Australia) (Qi et al 1994), which is based on digital image analysis technology and has now been incorporated into Cottonscope (Rodgers et al 2012). Similarly, Xu et al (2009) described a prototype microscopebased instrument that combined fibre width and translucence measurements to measure fibre maturity. A microscope image determination of ribbon width may well differ from that derived via the laser photometric method and would in turn relate .…”

Combining Ability and Variability for Fiber Maturity among Diverse World Cotton Genotypes

“…In pursuit of a rapid, but accurate, measurement of cotton fiber maturity that does not have the confounding problems associated with Mic, Xu et al (2009) suggested that fiber maturity may be predicted by the fiber ribbon width (RbWth) and translucency (secondary cell wall thickness). Cotton fibers twist along their longitudinal axes and when depicted in a 2-D image, these twists or convolutions will result in large variations in width of the fiber along the fiber's length.…”

“…Even though fiber maturity is important to the textile industry, as of yet, a fast, inexpensive, and reliable measurement of maturity does not exist (Hequet et al, 2006). Immature fibers inherently are weaker than more mature fibers and have a tendency to break during mechanical processing, which increases short fiber content (SFC) and in turn increases yarn defects such as neps (entanglements of immature fibers), thick places, thin places and yarn hairiness (Xu et al, 2009). Immature fibers typically do not have enough cellulose to effectively uptake dye, causing white specks in the fabric produced (Damian and Xu, 2010).…”

“…Mic is not a good representation of the complexity associated with the fiber quality trait of gravimetric fineness because it is impacted by fiber maturity, i.e., degree of secondary wall thickening relative to the perimeter, and fails to distinguish between gravimetric fineness and maturity since the two fiber qualities are confounded (Morton and Wray, 2008;Montalvo, 2005;Xu et al, 2009). Hence, it is theoretically possible that two bales with the same Mic, have entirely different fiber fineness and maturity.…”

“…More immature cottons will have more variable cross-section shapes (linear shape, U shape, etc. ), which translates into greater variability in RbWth when projected in a 2-D plan (Xu et al, 2009).…”