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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Cotton Structure and Quality Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #161742

Title: ADVANCES IN DETERMINING THE BROKEN FIBER CONTENT OF COTTON

Author
item Robert Jr, Kearny
item Cui, Xiaoliang
item Price, John
item Thibodeaux, Devron

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/4/2005
Publication Date: 6/1/2005
Citation: Robert Jr, K.Q., Cui, X., Price, J.B., Thibodeaux, D.P. 2005. Advances in determining the broken fiber content of cotton. Meeting Abstract.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Recent advances in the determination of fiber breakage have resulted from mathematical breakthroughs in the interpretation of the cotton fiber length distribution. New analytical tools are being built upon the realization that cotton fiber length spectra belong to a specific family of bi-component mathematical distributions, comprising a 'broken' and an 'unbroken' fraction. These functions, sometimes called Robert distributions, have the property that differences between their shapes are generated by different degrees of random fiber breakage occurring within the finite number of fibers being described. In particular, the change in length distribution (relative to a standard reference distribution, such as Gaussian by mass) which is manifested due to processing is numerically related to the amount of fiber breakage which occurs in the process. This analysis is based upon the assumption of conservation of length and mass during every single breaking event. If this approach is applied to cotton processing associated with the production of a cotton bale, it can be used to index the amount of breaking damage that has been accumulated by the fiber. The practical relevance lies in the fact that the amount of breakage in bale fiber can be determined from rapid examination of the fiber length distribution of a sample from that bale. This quantity, the fraction by mass of broken fibers, is called Broken Fiber Content (BFC), and constitutes a likely improvement over Short Fiber Content (SFC) as a meaningful index of cotton fiber damage.