Enhancing the quality of elastane-cotton core yarn by compact spinning

The quest for highly stretchable fabrics with good aesthetic and functional properties has led researchers to constantly involve in mingling of natural and synthetic fibers. Elastane-cotton core yarns have an increasing demand due to their wear comfort and stretch-to-fit properties; therefore, efforts are still going on to optimize the yarn properties to meet the requirements for diversified applications. With a view to enhancing the appearance and performance characteristics of elastane-cotton core yarns, the present work was undertaken to manufacture them by exploiting the most modern and versatile pneumatic compacting mechanism, namely Suessen's EliTe compact spinning system. Elastane-cotton core yarns of different counts (20 tex, 30 tex and 60 tex) were produced with compact and conventional ring spinning system. The difference in morphology and physical properties of two types of yarns were compared after a thorough investigation by scanning electron microscope, evenness tester and strength tester. The results exhibited a noticeable decrease in hairiness, hairiness variation and neps values, especially seed-coat neps, for elastane-cotton compact core yarn. Unevenness & imperfection of compact core yarns were also found to be decreased that were reflected to the proportional enhancements in tenacity & elongation values. The overall observation reveals the potential of pneumatic compacting mechanism in obtaining elastane-cotton core yarn with superior structure and improved mechanical properties.