Abstract
Reduction of yam hairiness by nozzles in ring spinning and winding is a new approach. Simulation of the airflow pattern inside the nozzles provides useful information about actual mechanism of hairiness reduction. The swirling air current inside the nozzles is capable of wrapping the protruding hairs around the yam body, thereby reducing yam hairiness. Since production rate of winding is very high and the process itself increases yarn hairiness any method to reduce the hairiness of yarns at this stage is a novel approach. A CFD (computational fluid dynamics) model has been developed to simulate the airflow pattern inside the nozzles using Fluent 6.1 software. In this study, both S- and Z-type nozzles having an axial angle of 500 and diameter of 2.2 mm were used for simulation studies. To create a swirling effect, four air holes of 0.4 mm diameter are made tangential to the inner walls of the nozzles. S- and Z-twisted yams of 30 tex were spun with and without nozzles and were tested for hairiness, tensile and evenness properties. The total number of hairs equal to or exceeding 3 mm (i.e. the S3 values) for yam spun with nozzle is nearly 49-51 % less than that of ring yams in case of nozzle-ring spinning, and 15 % less in case of nozzle-winding, while both the yarn types show little difference in evenness and tensile properties. Upward airflow gives best results in terms of hairiness reduction for nozzle-ring and nozzle wound yams compared to ring yarns. Yarn passing through the centre of the nozzle shows maximum reduction in S3 values.