A Study On The Rotor Spinning Of Wool/Acrylic Blended Fibers

Since the advent of commercial open-end spinning machines using the rotor principle, there has been extensive research work on enhancing their effectiveness in terms of both yarn quality and spinning economics. This has led to a significant increase in the production speeds of the rotor machine, currently reaching upto 3-6 times that of the ring frame. However, there are still significant constraints on the yarn quality and range that can be produced on the rotor machines, this is evident in the fact that rotor spinning is limited to coarse/medium counts and the yarn strengths produced are significantly lower compared to ring spun yarns.Adaptation of raw material and spinning techniques has led to success in the rotor spinning of wool and its blends. Considerable success has been archived by the careful choice of the raw material and the optimization of the spinning elements and their settings. This research is therefore part of the various studies currently ongoing on the optimization of the machine parameters and settings for the quality production of rotor spun wool/acrylic blended yarns.The first part of this research work was aimed at the optimum selection of the rotor spinning machine elements for spinning of 55/45 Wool/Acrylic blended fibers. The machine elements under consideration were the opening roller and navel. This was done by application of a combination Fuzzy Decision Making and Fuzzy Classification Analysis. Three methods; Linear Assignment Method (LAM), The Simple Weighted Addition Method (SAW) and TOPSIS Technique were employed for decision making. Finally, fuzzy classification analysis was done. It was noted that OK 61 opening roller and Ray chrome-plated steel navel were the best for spinning of these fibers,The next part of the research dealt with the prediction, modeling and optimization of yarn quality parameters using Regression Analysis. It was discovered that high rotor speeds increase yarn irregularity and imperfections while reducing tenacity and elongation at break. On the other hand, high opening roller speeds reduce yarn irregularity and imperfection while increasing tenacity. The optimum settings for spinning 55/45 wool/acrylic fiber blends was found to be at low rotor speed, low opening roller speed and low twist factor.Prediction, modeling and optimization were also done using ANFIS and Fuzzy Multi-Objective Optimization. In prediction and modeling, most the responses were found to be best trained using Gaussian input membership functions with a linear output function. The surface diagrams generated by ANFIS did not depict a clear relationship between the inputs and outputs as expected. However, the RMSE values were low, hence good.Finally, a comparison was done between the Regression model and ANFIS model. The ANFIS model was found to have a better predictive power than the Regression model. However, the Regression model was more appealing as far as connecting the physical relationship between the inputs and outputs were concerned. It was also worthy to note that both models gave similar optimization results.