THE MEASUREMENT OF FIBER-WITHDRAWAL FORCES IN SIMULATED HIGH-SPEED CARDING

Fibre withdrawal at high speeds is very common in fibre-opening proces ses such as carding. Understanding the effect of the withdrawal speed on the fibre-withdrawal force is of importance in improving the proces s productivity while controlling the level of associated fibre breakag es. In this work, high-speed fibre-withdrawal forces were measured dur ing a simulated carding process by using high-speed computer-data-acqu isition techniques. There was no significant effect of withdrawal spee d (up to 8 m/s) on the withdrawal-force level, and no fibre breakage o ccurred when the withdrawn fibre was not entangled. However, the confi guration of the fibre assembly, particularly its degree of entanglemen t, plays an important role in determining the pattern and level of wit hdrawal forces. The peak withdrawal forces were found to increase with an increase in the fibre-pin contact angles and fibre-assembly densit y.