ABSTRACT

Two different varieties of harvested cotton were ginned and carded with different processing conditions. As an auxiliary objective for finding the effects of ginning and carding rates on single fiber tensile properties, the HVI cotton properties and yarn tensile properties were examined. HVI tests were conducted and bundle strengths analyzed for ginned cottons and card slivers. The HVI bundle strength data for 8 different processing conditions were compared to each other, and the changes were tracked for existence of a possible trend in the strength along with the processing stages. Cotton properties were HVI tested and the results compared after ginning, and after carding. Based on the ginned cotton, neither the effects of ginning nor the effects of the number of lint cleaners in ginning were shown to be significant. This may be due to lack of uniformity in cotton samples in ginning processes. However, based on HVI tests performed on card slivers, the effects of ginning rates were shown to exist whereas the effects of carding rates were negligible. In this 2x2x2 factorial design, no HVI data after ginning were applied; only the HVI data from slivers were used for analyses. Overall, the high ginning rate and/or single lint cleaner produced a higher average bundle strength based on card sliver HVI data. The Mantis single fiber tensile data also showed the same trend for the effects of ginning rates and the number of lint cleaners. On yarn tensile properties, however, we could not find consistent effects of ginning and carding rates.