REPORT: VISIT TO A YARN MANUFACTURING FACTORY

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Factory Overview
The factory is situated in Katunayaka. They produce only cotton and viscose rayon single or double yarns, they dont mix cotton and viscose rayon but only either cotton or viscose rayon. They produce 25 tons of yarns per day and 21 tons of it is viscose rayon and 4 tons of it is cotton. They have a workforce of about 500 people. Their suppliers of cotton are mainly from Australia and for viscose rayon mainly from Thailand. Their main customers are from European countries and America. They use a ring spinning method to manufacture their yarns.

Blow Room Process

There are 2 separate rooms for viscose rayon and cotton where they use a manual bale opener for both fibres. But as cotton is a natural fibre it has a lot of impurities and the colour can vary so it has to be blended, mixed and cleaned before it can move to the carding machine. As viscose rayon is a man-made fibre it doesnt need cleaning and as there are no colour variations mixing is not needed. After the cotton is opened it is transported on a conveyer belt to be cleaned then after the fibre is cleaned it is sent to be mixed, using

Carding
The carding machines objectives are remove short fibres, clean, unravelling of neps, improve the alignment of fibres and form slivers so the fibre can be drafted.

Combing
In this factory they only comb cotton as there are still impurities and short fibres. Viscose rayon is sent straight to be drafted after it has been carded.

Drafting
It has a 4/4 double apron roller drafting system. Ths is done so the fibres can be aligned so it is easier to make sheets which the super lap former does. The machine produces a draft of 7.8.

Super lap former

It takes from 12 to 16 slivers and makes them into sheets so it can be combed. This machine produces 76g/m.

Combing
The sheets produced from the super lap former are transported to the combing machine where the cotton is combed removing short fibres and cleaning. Then it is transported and slivers are formed using where there is a small draft. Slivers are wound and then transported to the draw frame machine.

Drafting
Both cotton and viscose rayon fibres are put through draw frames where 8 slivers are fed and slivers are monitored by an auto leveler so that the fibres can be drafted well. These 8 slivers are made into one thinner sliver which is done by the rollers. The machine has 4/3 double apron roller drafting system and has a draft of 8.

Flyer Frame
Slivers are further drafted before spun on a bobbin. The flyer frame uses 4/3 double apron roller drafting. Both cotton and viscose are wounded on colour coded bobbins so that they dont get misplaced or mixed. The flyer travels at about 3500m per minute. Also it twists the yarn. This is wound up on to a package so it can transported for spinning.

Ring Spinning
The yarns are passed through a 3/3 double apron roller drafting system. Then the yarn is spun on a smaller bobbin. The bobbins winds the yarn at 19000m per minute.

Yarn Rewinding
The bobbins are transported to a re-winder so that the yarn can be wound on to a bigger yarn. The machine is called an auto coner (process coner), takes small and winds them on a bigger cone removing defects like neps and entanglements.

Double yarn
If the customer asks for a double yarn, finished single yarns are transported and 2 single yarns are taken and twisted in the S direction. After the process is completed the finished double yarn is exposed to a ultra-violet light to find any defects or if mixing is not done properly.

Research and Development

This department takes a sample of the finish single and double yarns, using various machine they measure the strength of the yarn, whiteness only for cotton as it a natural fibre, yarn evenness and yarn count. If there are complaints by customers this department will check the output and see if there are any problems. They also have to make sure that the temperature has to be kept at 200C +/- 20C and the relative humidity at 65 +/- 4%.