Textile Fibers: Properties, Finishes, and Classifications

Posted on Sep 14, 2024 in Design and Engineering

Cotton Finish

Mercerization

– Sodium hydroxide is used to increase cotton’s absorbency, luster, and strength.

Quality of COTTON

  • High quality: Combed (removed short fibers)
  • Lower quality: Not combed

Linen Finish

Beetling

Yarns are flattened (pounded) to create a fabric that looks more regular and tighter. Also increases sheen.

Linen Quality

  • High Quality: “Line” – Long, combed
  • Low Quality: “Tow” – Short flax fibers. Line fibers are ready for wet spinning into yarn. Tow fibers must be carded before dry spinning into yarns for heavier fabrics for interior textiles.

Silk Finish

Weighting

Treatment of silk with metallic salts to increase the fabric’s weight, hand, and dye affinity. May result in accelerated degradation of silk (“Shattered Silk”).

Quality of SILK

  • High Quality: Reeled – filament length (smooth, lustrous)
  • Less Quality: Spun – staple length (more cotton-like in appearance & less lustrous)

Wool Finish

Carbonizing

Treatment for wool in which acid removes cellulosic matter and prepares the fiber for dying. Also moth resistant.

Quality of WOOL

  • High Quality: Worsted Yarn – smooth, straight, & uniform. Wool or wool-like yarn that has been processed to remove short fibers and make remaining fibers more parallel.
  • Low Quality: Woolen Yarn – Softer, more loosely twisted yarn, and implies shorter, less uniform in length and less parallel fibers.

Textile Basics

What does TFPIA stand for and what does it state?

Textile Fiber Products Identification Act

– Every garment sold in the US must have a tag identifying fiber content in descending order.

What are the 2 main classifications of fibers?

Natural & Man-Made

What are the 5 components of Textiles?

  • Fiber
  • Yarn
  • Structure
  • Finish
  • Coloring

What are the 2 main groups of natural fibers?

  • Cellulose: Comes from a plant
  • Protein: Comes from an animal

What are the 2 main groups of man-made fibers?

  • Natural: Regenerated cellulose
  • Synthetic: Produced by synthetic polymers made from basic raw materials (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen)

What are the 4 main natural fibers?

Silk, cotton, wool, linen

What are the major groups by which fiber properties are classified? E.g. Comfort properties… What specific properties fall into each group?

A fiber property is a physical feature or resultant behavior of a fiber.

  1. Physical Structure
  2. Chemical composition & molecular arrangement
  3. Serviceability

List and discuss 10 fiber properties. Explain how each affects the fiber and impacts the use for the consumer.

Aesthetic Properties

Relates to the senses such as touch and sight… Luster, Drape, Texture, Hand

Comfort Properties

Relate to the ability of a textile to feel good when worn… Absorbency, Thermal Retention, Heat Conductivity (Breathable)

Appearance – Retention Properties

Resiliency, Dimensional Stability, Elasticity (elastic recovery), Mildew Resistance, Moth resistance

Pilling (Durability)

The formation of balls of fiber on the fabric surface.

Hand (Aesthetic)

The way a fiber feels, a tactile sensation: Silky, harsh, soft, crisp, dry.

Resiliency (Appearance)

Ability to return to original shape after bending, twisting, compressing, or a combination of deformations.

Heat Sensitivity (Comfort)

Ability to shrink, soften, or melt when exposed to heat.

Cost (Also serviceability)

Cost of producing fiber is directly related to how fiber is produced and marketed. Manual labor, Cost of production, Supply and demand.

Strength/Tenacity (Durability)

The ability to resist stress and is expressed as tensile strength (pounds/sq in.) / or as Tenacity (grams per denier). Ability of a textile to withstand a pulling force.

Care Properties (Also serviceability)

Treatments that are required to maintain the new look of the fabric. Reaction to water, chemical, heat. Different fibers respond to chemicals in unique ways. Reaction to acids or alkalis (Bleach).

Which fiber can be felted and why?

Wool. Unique & important property of wool under mechanical action – combining agitation, friction and pressure with heat & moisture.

For each main fiber, discuss its properties, as follows: absorbency, resilience, luster, strength, durability, cost, pilling, conductor of heat, abrasion resistance.

For each major fiber, discuss two advantages and disadvantages.

Cotton:

Advantages: Stronger when wet, Comfortable/breathes, Easy care, Inexpensive

Disadvantages: Mildews, Wrinkles, Poor stretch, Poor heat retention.

Linen:

Advantages: Very strong & durable, High luster, Comfortable (breathes)

Disadvantages: Low resiliency (Wrinkles), Elasticity & Elongation poor, Over-all appearance retention poor.

Silk:

Advantages: Sheen (Shiny/beautiful), Smooth, Comfortable in warm weather (absorbs) and in winter (heat retention)

Disadvantages: Laundering is difficult (weaker when wet – dye bleeds), Resistance to light is poor, Expensive

Wool:

Advantages: Excellent elongation, flexibility, & elasticity (Resilient!), Hygroscopic, Heat Retention

Disadvantages: Scales may irritate skin, Difficult to Launder, Moths destroy

For each major fiber, name 2 or 3 fabrics commonly made from that fiber.

  • Cotton: Broadcloth, Denim, Khaki, Brocade, Flannel, Lace, Calico, Foulard, Muslin
  • Wool: Flat woven, twill weave, plain weave
  • Silk: Chiffon, china silk, charmeuse, jacquard
  • Linen: Dowlas, ramie

State something about each major fiber that makes it unique from the others.

  • Cotton: Nature’s “comfort” fiber. Very comfortable, soft, breathes, and is easily cared for.
  • Linen: Nature’s “strongest” fiber. Very strong, 2-3 times stronger than cotton. Has a stiffer hand and drape.
  • Wool: Nature’s “Living” Fiber. More hygroscopic than any other fiber. Wool has scales which contribute to felting, aid in trapping heat, and help repel moisture initially.
  • Silk: Nature’s “Luxury” Fiber. Silk is the ONLY natural filament fiber.

What is the difference between man-made fibers and synthetic fibers?

The difference is the raw material from which the fiber is formed. Regenerated fibers are produced from naturally occurring polymers, the polymers for synthetic fibers are synthesized or made from small simple molecules.

What is a bast fiber? What is a seed fiber?

Bast fibers are fibers removed from the stem of a plant. Examples: Linen, Hemp, Ramie.

Seed fibers are fibers that are removed from a plant’s seed pod. Example: Cotton.

How does absorbency relate to static?

Fibers with good absorbency tend to be good electrical conductors.

Electrical conductivity – ability to transfer electrical charges.

Absorbent fibers do not build up static charge readily and do not attract lint or create problems with static cling.

For each natural fiber, discuss the two qualities of fiber/yarn, based on the spinning process.

The long continuous filament fibers can’t be used for blending because they’re too long and too difficult to handle. Also, natural fibers, such as wool and cotton…

Other natural fibers that can be used for yarn include linen and cotton. These tend to be much less elastic, and retain less warmth than the animal-hair yarns, though they can be stronger in some cases.

The most commonly spun animal fiber is wool harvested from sheep. For hand knitting and hobby knitting, thick, wool and acrylic yarns are frequently used.

Other animal fibers used include alpaca, angora, mohair, llama, cashmere, and silk.

For each natural fiber, discuss the basic processing of the fiber.

Cotton

  1. Harvested
  2. Ginning (removing fiber from seeds)
  3. Bailing and classification

At the mill…

Blending, Carding (stretching), Drawing, Combing (optional – finer fabrics), Spinning (Creating yarn)

Cotton is a staple fiber ranging from 1/2 to 2-1/2 inches long.

Linen

  1. Harvested by machines, stalks pulled, bundled, and dried.
  2. Rippling – Separating seed from stalk by threshing machines.

At the mill…

Retting (soaking & rotting), Scutching (removal of outer fibers from woody stalk/core), Hackling (carding & combing of cotton). Flax tow is ‘carded,’ flax line is “combed.”

Wool

  • Most wool is shorn from sheep -OR: Pulled off after ingesting or injecting chemicals.
  • Raw wool has grease (Lanolin). Clean wool (Scoured wool). Grading: quality determined by fineness & length. Sorting: Best wool comes from back, shoulders & sides. Quality of wool dictates end use. Mill: Blending, Carding, Drawing, Combing, Spinning.

Silk

  • Produced by silk worm (2500-3000 cocoons for 1 yard of fabric). Farmed & fed mulberry leaves. IF cocoons break, fibers processed like cotton – spun silk of staple length (Silk Noil – Waste). Moth stifled with heat. Cocoons sorted by fiber size, quality, defects. Soaking to soften sericin. Reeling 3-8 filaments at a time. Throwing – twisting to add strength. Result is filament silk approx. 1000 yards long.

Discuss the processing of man-made cellulose fibers vs. man-made synthetics.

Synthetic fibers are the result of extensive research by scientists to improve on naturally occurring animal and plant fibers. In general, synthetic fibers are created by forcing, usually through extrusion, fiber-forming materials through holes (called spinnerets) into the air and water forming a thread. Before synthetic fibers were developed, artificially manufactured fibers were made from cellulose, which comes from plants. These fibers are called cellulose fibers.

Man-made fiber – fiber whose chemical composition, structure, and properties are significantly modified during the manufacturing process.

What was the first man-made fiber and what is it made of? What was the first synthetic and what is it made of?

First man-made: rayon in 1910. A solution of cellulose.

First synthetic: Nylon in 1939.

What is the difference between a generic name and a trademark? What are some trademarks of the various man-made fibers?

Generic – refers to a family of manufactured or synthetic fibers that have similar chemical composition, are based on fiber chemistry, and approved by the Federal Trade Commission.

Trade name – Companies’ names for fibers and may be used in promotion and marketing. Example – Tencel Lyocell.

What does thermoplastic mean?

Describes a fiber’s sensitivity to heat. Fibers that melt or glaze at relatively low temperatures.

What is texturizing and how is it achieved? Give 2 examples.

Hand, or handle, is a general term for the characteristics perceived by the sense of touch when a fabric is held in the hand, such as drapability, softness, elasticity, coolness or warmth, stiffness, roughness, and resilience.

Texturing is the formation of crimp, loops, coils, or crinkles in filaments. Such changes in the physical form of a fiber affect the behavior and hand of fabrics made from them.

How are synthetic fibers created? How are man-made cellulosic fibers created?

Synthetic fibers are created by “transformation of natural polymers” (also called regenerated cellulosics), those made from synthetic polymers and those made from inorganic materials (These include the fibers made of glass, metal, ceramics and carbon.) But by far the largest group of man-made synthetic fibers being produced today are made from synthetic polymers.

Man-made fibers were developed and produced using polymers of natural origin, more precisely of cellulose which is a raw material available in large quantities in the plant world.

What makes triacetate different from acetate?

Triacetate is significantly more heat resistant than cellulose acetate.

List something unique about Glass, Olefin, Saran, Spandex and Metallic fibers.

  • Olefin: A manufactured fiber characterized by its light weight, high strength, and abrasion resistance. Olefin is also good at transporting moisture, creating a wicking action. End-uses include activewear apparel, rope, indoor-outdoor carpets, lawn furniture, and upholstery.
  • Glass: Ingredients: sand, limestone, additives. Skin irritant (breaks easily). Extruded into long filaments. Doesn’t burn, melts at 2400 degrees F. Thermal retentive.
  • Spandex Fiber: A manufactured elastomeric fiber that can be repeatedly stretched over 500% without breaking, and will still recover to its original length. This fiber is widely used in the manufacturing of garments to create elasticity.
  • Metallic: Are manufactured fibers composed of metal, plastic-coated metal, or a core completely covered by metal. Gold and silver have been used since ancient times as yarns for fabric decoration. More recently, aluminum yarns, aluminized plastic yarns, and aluminized nylon yarns have replaced gold and silver. Metallic filaments can be coated with transparent films to minimize tarnishing.
  • Saran: It is a remarkable barrier against water, oxygen and aromas. It has superior chemical resistance to alkalies and acids, is insoluble in oil and organic solvents, has very low moisture regain and is impervious to mold, bacteria, and insects. But it is soluble in polar solvents.

Textile Glossary

  • Fiber: The smallest component, hairlike in nature, that can be separated from a fabric.
  • Yarn: An assemblage of fibers that form a continuous strand used in making fabrics.
  • Fabric: Flexible planar substance made from solutions, fibers, yarns, fabrics or any combination.
  • Structure: A fabric in which the pattern or design is created as the fabric is created.
  • Finish: Any process done to fiber, yarn or fabric to change appearance, hand or performance.
  • Color: The dyes or pigments that add color to textiles.
  • Cellulose Fiber: Fibers made from cellulose, a complex sugar.
  • Protein Fiber: Are produced by animals or insects and are made of complex natural chemicals: keratin for wool and specialty wool and fibroin for silk.
  • Man-made: Fiber created from natural materials or by chemical processes.
  • Synthetic fiber: Fiber, fibre – a slender and greatly elongated substance capable of being spun into yarn.
  • Acrylic, acrylic fiber: Polymerized from acrylonitrile.
  • Nylon: A thermoplastic polyamide; a family of strong resilient synthetic fibers.
  • Fiber Synthetic: Second type of manufactured fibers. Fully man-made fibers (e.g., nylon, polyester, olefin, and acrylic).
  • Fibers Staple: A natural fiber (raw cotton, wool, hemp, flax) that can be twisted to form yarn; “staple fibers vary widely in length.”
  • Filament: A fine or thinly spun thread, fiber, or wire.
  • Texturizing: The characteristic physical structure given to a material, an object, etc., by the size, shape, and arrangement of its parts: soil of a sandy texture.
  • Thermoplastic: Describes a fiber’s sensitivity to heat. Fibers that melt or glaze at relatively low temperatures.