They consist of synthetic fibers and regenerated fibers. Synthetic fibers come entirely from artificial materials like petrochemicals. Examples of synthetic fibers include: Polyester, Nylon and Spandex. Meanwhile, regenerated fibers are man-made fibers derived from natural substances such as cellulose or protein.
While they come from natural substances, their structure and properties have been modified by humans. There they are classified as man-made, and not natural, fibers. Yarns are long, continuous strands of fibers that are spun together. Think of them like narrow strings twisting around one another to form a thick rope.
The strength and thickness of yarns differ according to how the yarn is twisted. A high degree of twist produces a stronger yarn, while a lower degree of twist creates softer yarn. Yarn is then spun into fabrics, which are used to make our garments. A wide variety of methods can be used to produce fabrics from yarns, such as weaving, knitting, braiding, felting and twisting.
These concepts may come off as a little abstract. To help you understand them better, watch this video below:. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Facebook Instagram Linkedin WhatsApp. There is another word fibre that is used to refer to the material of the dress or the cloth that makes the situation very confusing.
There are people who cannot make out whether it is fabric or fibre that they should use to describe the textile or the cloth. This article attempts to highlight the differences between fabric and fibre to enable readers to know the right word to use when talking about textiles.
To begin with, any cloth or textile is a result of fibers of a substance woven in a pattern. Fibers are strands of materials that are spun together to make yarn. This yarn is the basic material used for manufacture of cloth or textile.
For example, mankind has been making use of cotton since time immemorial to make clothes. Cotton balls are obtained from the cotton plant and turned into strands that can be woven to be finally converted into clothes or textile. There are many sources of fibre but for the purpose of clothing natural plant and animal sources are preferred for comfort and safety. Wool from animals is another natural fibre that has been used for thousands of years to make warm garments to provide protection during winters.
We measure textiles by weight. GSM, grams per square meter, measures how many grams a 1 meter by 1 meter square of fabric will weigh. Sometimes these units of measure can get confusing. And depending on the countries you work in you might need to convert them. But, don't worry that is easy. Use, our handy calculator! Now that we know what are textiles, we can dive into fibers.
A fiber is a very thin, hair-like structure. Actually, your hair is technically a fiber. Fibers are so tiny that we measure them in microns. They are generally much, much, longer then they are wide. The differences in the fibers chemical composition and, molecular and physical structure, give a fiber its performance characteristics. Fibers are usually twisted together to form yarns, and yarns are then woven or knit to form fabrics… But, we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Knowing the type of fiber you will use is not only important for product development and creating the best product possible, but also for your import and export duties. Some textile fibers, like cotton, actually receive lower import taxes than a synthetic fiber like polyester. If you know the rules, and how to optimize fiber blends, you can create a premium product and save your company some serious cash.
There are two main classifications of textile fibers, they are natural and manufactured, or synthetic. They are exactly what they sound like. Natural textile fibers derive in nature, like from plants and animals.
Synthetic textile fibers which require manufacturing in a laboratory. Synthetic fibers help fill in the gaps or solve specific needs that natural fibers can not. In other words, their design is for specific performance. There is no such thing as a perfect fiber. Every fiber has its pros and cons. The art of textile science is to blend fibers, yarns, and weaving or knitting techniques to create the fabric that is perfect for what you are specifically designing. Did you know that textile fibers can range from less than 1 inch to miles in length?
What is a staple fiber? Staple textile fibers are shorter fibers that are measured in inches. Filament textile fibers are much longer and need larger units of measure to record their length. As a general rule, all natural fibers are staple length. But, there are a few exceptions to this rule. They are silk, metal, and rubber. Silk, when unrolled from an unbroken silkworm cocoon, is 1 continuous filament yarn that measures about feet long.
It is possible to create filament fibers of metal and rubber by manufacturing them to form 1 long continuous filament fiber, even though this form is not the organic form they take in nature. Synthetic fibers are all filament fibers originally. A fiber like spandex is always a 1 long filament.
But, a synthetic fiber like acrylic can be cut up into staple length fibers before twisting into yarn. By cutting up a synthetic fiber into staple length size, the yarn and final fabric will take on characteristics much closer to those of a natural fiber. Acrylic fibers in an acrylic sweater are cut to about the same staple length as wool fibers, and that is way acrylic sweaters often feel interchangeable with real wool.
Natural fibers are split into two main groups - plants and animals. Plants are cellulosic based made of cellulose , like cotton and hemp.
And, animal fibers are protein based, like wool. Knowing this will help alot when we start to talk about different dye types later on in another mini-course. What are types of plant fibers? The plant fiber group is then broken into 3 subgroups. These are fibers that come from the stem of the plant like flax, hemp and jute, fibers that come from the leaves of plants like sisal and abaca, and lastly, fibers that come from the seed portion of the plant like cotton and kapok kapok is cotton's wild cousin.
Animals fibers just come from animals, some examples include yak, alpaca, sheep's wool, and vicuna. Silk comes from the cocoon of the silkworm. We consider it to be an animal-based fiber. Traditionally the cocoons were thrown into chemicals or boiling water to unravel the silk filament, killing the worm in the process. Today, many people find this practice cruel, so there is peace silk.
This type of silk allows the worm to hatch from the cocoon, and then the fibers are gathered. The problem with this is that the silk yarn is not 1 long continuous fiber, so peace silk is not as smooth and consistent as traditional silk manufacturing methods.
Synthetic fibers are man-made in a lab. Each fiber is made through a process called extrusion. Generally, synthetic fibers belong in three groups cellulosic , protein , and petroleum-derived. To make a synthetic fiber, a solution is pushed through a device called a spinneret. A spinnerette resembles a shower head or spaghetti strainer. It is a small device ranging from less than an inch to almost a foot in diameter with holes in it. The holes can be made in all different shapes and sizes, and each spinneret can have anywhere from 10 to 10, holes in it.
The shape of the holes, their size, and how many of them there are will ultimately affect the properties of the yarns they create. There are 3 different methods of creating a synthetic fiber, they are dry, wet, and melt. Wet is generally the most popular method, and is how we make rayon. In wet spinning, fiber chemicals extrude into a liquid chemical bath. When the fibers meet the chemical bath it causes a chemical reaction that hardens the liquid into a solid fiber. In dry spinning, the fiber chemicals extrude into the air, and the air will then trigger a chemical reaction and quickly dry the solution, forming them into fibers.
Lastly, melt spinning uses heat to melt a solid chemical and then extrudes the melted liquid through the spinneret into cooler air. The cold air helps to cool the fiber back into its original solid state. Telling fibers apart can be tricky at first. Remember, many synthetics are made to mimic natural fibers. And, often, different types of textile fibers are blended together. I remember when I was in college at FIT, when I went shopping I would test myself by trying to guess the content of each garment.
When I first started this game I got it wrong almost all the time. If you are dealing with a mill and worried they might be lying to you and trying to sell you a cheaper fabric… I can not tell you how many times people thought they were buying expensive silk and were really buying rayon blends, you can use this trick.
The burn test is just what it sounds like, take that fabric and burn it. First, separate out a few fibers, then set them on fire. The way the fabric burns, and smells will tell you a lot about where it came from.
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