TEXTILE TECHNOLOGY The Impact of Short Fiber Content on the Quality of Cotton Ring Spun Yarn

This study was designed to quantitatively as-sess the effects of short fiber (< 12.7 mm long) in raw cotton on the quality of 20s ring spun yarn. Twenty-eight bales of cotton with a wide range of fiber properties and an especially diverse popula-tion of short fiber content were utilized. Properties of the raw cotton were measured by High Volume Instrumentation (HVI), Advanced Fiber Informa-tion System (AFIS) instruments, and the manual Suter-Webb (SW) Array method. Ring spun yarns produced from these cottons were tested for process and product quality. Results indicate that most of the yarn properties—especially yarn strength, irregularity, and frequency of thick and