ABSTRACT

The presence of excessive amounts of short fibers in cotton bales is unanimously identified as a high priority issue for the cotton industry. Significant productivity and quality losses are related to short fibers. Moreover the problem has recently become an international trade issue and attempts are made to include a measure of short fibers in the cotton commercialization system. Examination of fiber length distribution in the course of spinning preparation revealed that the current parameters used to characterize the length distribution, particularly the Short Fiber Content (SFC), present multiple shortcomings and are not representative of the fiber-process interactions and of the phenomena related to short fibers. The SFC parameter is not reliably usable for fiber quality improvement, cotton commercialization, or process optimization. A new length parameterization is necessary. A new parametric model is being evaluated for fitting the cotton fiber length distribution.