Study to relate mini-spun yarn tenacity with cotton fiber strength

Authors: Liu, Yongliang; Campbell, Benjamin - Todd; Delhom, Christopher

Submitted to: Textile Research Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/22/2019
Publication Date: 3/18/2019
Citation: Liu, Y., Campbell, B.T., Delhom, C.D. 2019. Study to relate mini-spun yarn tenacity with cotton fiber strength. Textile Research Journal. 89(21–22):4491–4501. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040517519837725.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0040517519837725

Interpretive Summary: There has been great interest of assessing yarn tenacity directly from available cotton fiber quality data acquired by various means, including high volume instrumentation (HVI). The HVI test is a primary and routine measurement of providing fiber properties to cotton researchers. The knowledge about the yarn tenacity potential within a cotton cultivar or between the cultivars could be useful with regard to understanding the selection of cotton cultivars. Instead of developing linear regression models from HVI fiber qualities to predict yarn tenacity, this study applied a simple ratio method (i.e., normalized fiber strength or yarn tenacity with five HVI fiber qualities) to relate fiber strength with yarn tenacity. The preliminary results indicated that the short fiber index (SFI) has the greater effect on the correlation between modified yarn tenacity and modified fiber strength than micronaire, yellowness (+b), upper-half mean length (UHML), and uniformity index (UI). The observation provides cotton fiber researchers a new sight of utilizing HVI fiber SFI and strength, as a semi-quantitative and fast approach, to compare the yarn tenacity performance within a cotton cultivar or between the cultivars.

Technical Abstract: There has been great interest in assessing yarn tenacity directly from available cotton fiber property data acquired by various means, including high volume instrumentation (HVI). The HVI test is a primary and routine measurement providing fiber properties to cotton researchers. Knowledge about yarn tenacity property within a cotton cultivar or between the cultivars could be useful with regard to understanding the selection of cotton cultivars. This study examined the effect of cotton growth location, crop year, and cultivar on three relationships (fiber strength versus fiber micronaire, yarn tenacity versus fiber micronaire, and fiber strength versus yarn tenacity), and found great variations in the Pearson correlation and the slope of respective regression lines. Instead of developing linear regression models from HVI fiber properties to predict yarn tenacity, this study applied a simple ratio method (i.e., normalized fiber strength or yarn tenacity with five HVI fiber properties) to relate fiber strength with yarn tenacity. The short fiber index was found to have the greater effect on the correlation between modified yarn tenacity and modified fiber strength than micronaire, yellowness, upper-half mean length, and uniformity index. The result implied the feasibility of utilizing HVI fiber short fiber index and strength data, as a semi-quantitative and fast approach, to compare yarn tenacity performance within a cotton cultivar or between the cultivars.