Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By: D.Shanmuganandam
By: D.Shanmugartandam, Assistant Director The South India Textile Research Association,
1. Introduction
The process of twisting is an indispensable means of improving certain yarn properties and
satisfying textile requirements that cannot be fulfilled by the single yarns. The method of twisting two
or more single yarns is called doubling or folding or ply twisting. Such yarns are designated as
doubled yarn, folded yarn or plied yarn and the machines intended for the purpose are called
Traditionally, ring doublers were used for ply twisting spun yams and uptwisters were used for
twisting filament yarns. Now-a-days, TFO twisters are gaining world-wide acceptance in both spun
yarn and filament yarn sectors mainly because of their inherent advantages like (1) production of
long length of knot free yarns which facilitates better performance in the subsequent processes and
Presently, over 4 lakh TFO twisting positions are working in India. However, not much
information about the working performance of TFO twisters particularly with regard to production
parameters, process sequence, yarn quality, etc. are readily available. Hence, SITRA conducted an
inter-mill study on the performance of TFO twisters, in which 100 mills participated.
This paper deals with count-wise production particulars like spindle speed, tpi and production
per spindle. Some other Important operational parameters like improvement in yarn quality, type of
spindle drive, delivery package weight and feed package weight ratio, doubled yarn twist and single
Table 1 gives the profile of the 100 mills which have participated in the study.
Of the total mills, 60% are from southern region; predominantly from Tamil Nadu (45%). It is
significant that a large number of up-country mills has participated in the study. Nearly two-thirds of
the mills manufactured cotton yams and 12% produced non-cotton yarns like polyester, viscose, PA/
blends, etc.
3. Salient features of TFO twisters working In the participant mills a) Type of TFO
Of the 1440 TFO twisters working in the participant mills, about 70% of them are indigenous makes.
Nearly 70% of the mills have exclusively indigenous make machines and one-eighth have only
The number of TFO twisters working per mill ranges from as low as 1 to a high of 84, the average
The number of spindles per TFO twister varies very widely from 88 to 280. In the case of indigenous
machines, the spindles per twister range between 108 and 218; more popular size being 144
spindles.
The participant mills produced as many as 152 different counts (6/6$ to 2/102s) and varieties
of yams such as combed, warp, hosiery, blended (PA/ & P/C), polyester, viscose and acrylic.
Of the total counts manufactured, slightly over one-half are cotton yarns while polyester
blended yarns account for about one-fourth. Number of plies ranges from 2 to 6 in cotton counts,
c) Twist direction
Normally, folded yarns have the doubling twist in the opposite direction to the spinning twist, ie
direction of twist in ring yarn is T and direction of doubled yam twist is 'S\ However, for special
applications, there are yarns with twist on twist, with the folding twist in the same direction as the
spinning twist, say 'Z' on 'Z\ In this study, except 3 cases, all the folded yarns produced are with 'S'
Generally, TFO twisters are working with the following two types of spindle drive
arrangements.
Using one single long belt to drive ail the spindles through a centralized tensioning arrangement.
Of the 1440 TFO twisters covered in the study, nearly two-thirds are working with 4 spindle tape
drive while the remaining are with tangential belt drive, Indigenous manufacturers largely use 4
spindle tape drive system while almost the entire imported machines are with tangential belt drive
system.
The basic requirement of TFO twisters is to house a cylindrical stationary feed package and
provide support at the time of unwinding of yarn from the package during working. For this purpose,
yarns require a protection pot around the package. The main objectives of providing protection pot
are to:
protect the feed package from damage facilitate start-up of the balloon
separate the balloon and the feed yarn to avoid abrasion and protect the feed yam
Normally, the diameter of the protection pot depends on the diameter of the feed package.
Closer the internal diameter of the protection pot to outside diameter of the feed package, the space
Analysis of the data regarding the protection pot diameter shows that pot sizes used by the
mills range from 120 mm to 220 mm. Slightly more than one-half" of the TFO twisters used 150 mm
diameter pots to produce wide range of counts (2/10s to 2/102s) and materials (Cotton, P/V, P, P/C
& VSF). The next popular pot size is 140 - 145 mm (20% twisters).
4. Process sequence
Process sequence followed by the mills in TFO twisting depends largely on the twisted yarn
quality requirement of the customers. The mills participated in the study follow as many as 8
different sequences of preparatory and post TFO processes in the case of ring yarns and 2 different
1. Popular sequences
Ring spinning] - jauto winding| - |doubler winding] - | TFO| - ]
three-fourths of the mills. Since TFO twisted yarns are generally produced as premium yarns for
manufacturing high value fabrics, these mills (A and B processes) use automatic cone winders to
clear the defects in ring yarns electronically and join the broken ends by splicing. Another one-fifth of
the mills use conventional cone winders to clear the defects in ring yarns.
Nearly 55% of the mills directly market the TFO packages while the remaining mills rewind
them using conventional cone winders. The rewinding is done for the following requirements:
to clear the package defects as well as yarn defects, more particularly untwisted
Further analysis reveals that one-tenth of the mills follow more than one process sequence.
Moreover, the four popular sequences, viz A, B, C and D are being used for all types of materials
twist (S/Z). The twist balance can be achieved by the selection of proper ply twist to contract the
single twist and it should be effective over a wide range of humidities and types of processing.
The D/S ratios (D = doubled yarn twist; S= single yarn twist) furnished by the mills were
D/S ratio
Average D/S ratio of cotton ring yarns is about 0.7, which corresponds to that normally
expected value for good balancing. However, the ratio is found to vary very widely between mills in
different counts of the order of 22%. In the case of cotton OE yams, the D/S ratio is somewhat low
at about 0.65.
In the polyester viscose blended yams, the average D/S ratio is 0.97, ranging from 0.91 to 101
between counts. The almost unity ratio used in polyester viscose blended yarns, ie single twist and
ply twist are equal, leads to high strength. This is because a fibre arrangement that is nearly parallel
to the yam axis makes maximum use of the inherent fibre strength. The D/S ratio of polyester cotton
blended yams is, however, about 20% lower than the PA/ yarns at 0.78.
6. Delivery package weight and feed package weight ratio Feed package
weight
An ideal feed package for TFO twister is parallel wound cylindrical package called cheese. In
the doubler/assembly winding process, two or more single yarns from cones are wound as cheese.
This ensures paralleiity of the feed yams before entering into the tension zone/twisting zone of TFO
twister and thereby enables proper twisting. If, however, two single end cheeses are directly used as
feed packages in TFO twister, snarling may fake place. None of the mills participated in the study
Weight of the feed package is normally decided by 1) delivery package weight and 2) pot
Table 3 shows the delivery package weight, feed package weight and their ratios in some
major counts.
5
Table 3 Delivery package weight and feed package weight ratio
Mode
-
900 945
945 945
945
630 900
630/945
630/900
630/800
-
900/1000
900
It can be seen that the weight of the feed package varies very widely between mills in all the
counts, ranging from 475 g to 1890 g. In cotton counts up to 2/4Qs, the most popularly used feed
package weight is 945 g and in finer counts it ranges from 630 g to 945 g. The popular feed
To avoid knots due to feed package replacement, it is generally desirable to produce the
final package from one feed package. However, in practice in order to reduce energy and capital
costs, one final package is produced from 2 or 3 feed packages, though additional knots are
inevitable. Further, some mills are rewinding the TFO yarn in order to remove these additional
Decisive parameters of a package are i) traverse length, ii) package diameter iii) taper
length, iv) overall weight, v) density, vi) yarn crossing angle and vii) hardness. The primary
requirements are i) smooth unwinding at continuous or intermittent high speed and ii) even dye-
liquor penetration. TFO twisting machines can be adopted to produce either cylindrical or conical
In cotton counts, the weight of take-up package ranges from 600 g to 3300 g, the popular
weight being 1890 g and in the case of P/V blended yarns, the popular weight is 2000 g
two feed packages of equal weights are used (Figure 1). About one-sixth of the mills follow 1:3 ratio.
Only one-eighth of the mills are found to use 1:1 ratio while 4% mills follow 1:4 ratio. By following a
specific ratio of delivery package weight and feed package weight, mills can minimise the yarn
waste due to left over residual yarn in feed package. It may be noted that another one-tenth of the
mills do not follow any specific ratio. These mills, either impart additional knots or waste more yarn.
15
Figure 1 % mills following different delivery package weight to feed package weight ratio
4 gives the average production rate achieved by the mills in some major counts along with the
Machine
Prodn./spl./
effy.(%)8 hrs. (g)
95 907
93 527
93 371
95 281
94 241
96 228
95 158
96 152
93 584
93 1376
95 575
94 376
88 1723
The overall production rate is about 900 g per spindle per 8 hours in 2/20s. 370 g in 2/40s C,
whereas in 2/40s and above it ranges from 10000 rpm to 11000 rpm. In 10s OE, the average speed
is somewhat low at 7000 rpm. In polyester blended yarns, the speed varies from 8300 rpm (2/15s
P/V) to 10000 rpm (2/30s P/V). The average machine efficiency reported by the mills in different
counts is well over 90%, se ranging between 93% and 96% (except 2/10s OE).
Based on the data furnished by the mills, tentative standard production rates for some major
counts have been fixed. Table 5 shows the standard production rates and the corresponding spindle
Machine
efficiency (%)
91
95
95
95
95
95
96
98
95
94
95
95
8. Improvement in yam quality due to twisting
The main objective of ply twisting is to improve the evenness, strength and elongation, lusture,
smoothness and abrasion resistance at yarn stage and to obtain increased stability against wear,
improvement to fabric cover and visual appearance at fabric stage. Generally, the user of doubled
yarns rarely needs all these properties to be fulfilled at a time. He may look for one or two of these
Yarn quality particulars -- for both single yam and doubled yarn - furnished by the mills were
analysed and the consolidated results are given in Table 6 for some major counts.
Total imperfections/km
8
b) Single yarn strength, elongation and their variation
Single yamSingle
strength
yarn
(g)Elongation
strength CV%
at break (%) Elongation CV%
Note; The above quality particulars were not furnished by the mills for cotton carded counts.
CSP
Twisting process has improved the lea CSP of ply yams by about 10% in the case of carded
cotton counts (2/20s to 2/30s) and polyester/viscose blended counts (2/15s to 2/4Gs). Cotton
combed yarns (2/40s to 2/80s), however, registered about 15% increase in CSP.
Count C¥%
It is generally expected that the twisting process would improve the count CV%. The cotton
carded yarns registered about 12% drop in count CV%, ie from 1.74 in single yarns to 1.54 in
doubled yarns. Cotton combed yarns and polyester viscose blended yarns, however, witnessed a
substantial drop of about 20%. The count CV% of cotton combed doubled yams averaged 1.25
Doubling process has improved the evenness by about 25% in all the three varieties of yarns
compared to the corresponding single yarns. The U% of the doubled yarns is around 9 in cotton
carded counts, 8 in cotton combed counts and 7.5 in P/V blended counts.
9
Total imperfections per km registered a substantial reduction of 90% to 95% in the case of
cotton folded yams and around 80% in P/V blended folded yarns. The imperfections in doubled
yarns averaged about 30 per km in cotton carded counts, 20 per km in cotton combed counts and
15 per km in polyester viscose blended counts. Such a low imperfections level would improve the
Doubling process has increased the single yarn strength of folded yarns by about 110% in both
cotton and polyester viscose blended counts. The average strength of cotton combed single yarns is
about 200 g, ranging from 265 g in 40s to 145 g in 80s. The average strength of doubled yarns has
increased to 430 g, recording an improvement of around 110%. In the case of polyester viscose
blended yarns, the single yarn strength is about 590 g in 30s and 420 g in 40s counts. After TFO
twisting, the strength increased to 1230 g in 2/30s and 890 g in 2/40s, thus registering an increase
of 110%.
Elongation at break
Elongation is one of the important properties of yarn from weavability point of view. The
average elongation of cotton combed yams ranges from 4.2% to 4.8% for single yarns and from
4.7% to 5.1%> for doubled yarns. On the whole, the elongation of doubled yarns is about 10%
higher than the corresponding single yarns. In the case of polyester/viscose blended yarns, the
elongation averaged 12.2% in single yarns arid 13.2% in doubled yarns, thus recording an increase
of about 8%.
The CV% of single yarn strength of folded yams (for both cotton and polyester/viscose blend) is
about 25% lower than the corresponding single yarn strength variation. In the case of elongation of
doubled yarns, the CV% is about 30% lower in cotton combed yarns and 20% lower
Since doubling equalises and compensates single yam defects such as weak spots and
thin/thick places, ply twisting results in increased tenacity and elongation and reduced their co-
efficient of variation.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to place on record his grateful thanks to all the 100 mills for providing data
relating to TFO twisting. He expresses his sincere thanks to Dr.Arindam Basu, Director, SITRA and
Ms.lndra Doraiswamy, Advisor, SITRA for their guidance at various stages of this work. His thanks
are also due to the staff of Liaison and Consultation Division, SITRA for their help towards the
References
(1/2)
publication
SITRA
Fax: 91 -422-2571896,
Email: sitra@vsnl.com
10
To read more articles on Textile, Fashion, Apparel, Technology, Retail and General please visit
www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article
To promote your company, product and services via promotional article, follow this link:
http://www.fibre2fashion.com/services/featrued-article/featured article.asp
11