Draw Frame
A draw frame is a machine used is short staple spinning where the
supplied sliver is blended, doubled, levelled and drafted by passing
them through a series of pairs of rollers where each roller moves at a
higher speed than the previous one.
It usually contributes to less than 3% of the production cost of the yarn.
But its influence on yarn properties, specially on evenness, strength
and elongation is very high.
The yarn is never better than the draw frame sliver.
Why is Draw Frame necessary?
• Fiber orientation is card sliver is not
good due to condensation of web
after doffer stripper.
• Presence of fiber hooks
• Variation of sliver quality among the
carding machines of the factory.
Main actions of drawframe
• Doubling: The process of combining two or more strands into one is
called doubling. Mathematically it is the ratio of number of feed strands
and number of delivery strands.
• Drafting: It is the process of reducing weight per unit length of strand by
passing it through a series of pair of rollers where each pair rotates at a
higher speed than the previous one.
Doubling
Drafting
Tasks of Draw Frame
1. Equalizing: The main task of draw frame is improving evenness of the sliver. It is carried out
mainly by doubling and auto-levelling.
C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D C/D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Doubling
6:1
B/D B/D
1 2
4 4
Doubling F/D
8:1
Tasks of Draw Frame
2. Parallelizing: As the orientation of fibers in carded sliver is quite haphazard, the task falls upon
draw frame to parallelize them. Moreover a large extent of the fibers are in hook shape which
largely reduces their effective length. All of this straightening and parallelizing is achieved by
drafting. But it should be kept in mind that applying high draft in a single stage will put excessive
stress of the fiber mass and will deteriorate orientation furthermore. Therefore, draft should be
applied as low as possible initially and increased gradually.
Tasks of Draw Frame
3. Blending: In addition to the equalizing effect, doubling also provides a degree of compensation of
raw material variations by blending, which occurs simultaneously. This result is exploited in
particular in the production of blended yarns comprising of cotton/synthetic or synthetic/synthetic
blend. For example, for a blend of 67:33, 4 slivers of one component and 2 sliver of the other one
are fed to the draw frame.
Tasks of Draw Frame
4. Dust Removal: Dust removal can only be carried out to a significant degree when there are high
levels of fiber/fiber and fiber/metal friction, since a large portion of these very small particles (dust)
adhere relatively strongly to the fibers. In draw frame, this friction arises due to the drafting
operation. The draw frame is therefore a good dust removing machine. In high performance draw
frame equipped with appropriate suction systems, more than 80% of the incoming dust is extracted.
Operating principle
Operating Devices
• Creel: In particular, the creel must be designed so that –
o False drafts are avoided
o The machine stops immediately when a sliver break occurs
o Sliver breaks can be dealt with ease, comfort and safety.
Types of creel:
• Static creel
• Power creel
Operating Devices
• The Drafting Arrangement:
It is the heart of the drawing frame and thus the part which exerts the most decisive influence on
quality.
Requirements:
• Simple, uncomplicated construction
• Stable design with smooth running of rollers
• High quality products even with high running speeds
• High degree of flexibility i.e. suitable for all raw materials, fiber lengths, sliver hanks etc.
• Optimal control over the movement of the fibers in drafting zones
• High precision of both operation and adjustment
• Rapid and simple adjustability of roller settings and draft levels
• Ease of maintenance and cleaning
• Optimal ergonomic design
Drafting Zone Roller Arrangements
Influences on the draft
Material factors:
• Mass of the fibers in the cross-section
• Degree of order of the fibers
• Shape of the cross section of the fiber strand
• Compactness of the fiber strand
• Adhesion between the fibers in the strand depending upon surface structure, crimp, spin finish,
compression etc.
• Fiber length
• Evenness of distribution of fiber length
• Existing twist in the fiber strand
Influences on the draft
Machine factors:
• Diameter of the rollers
• Hardness of the top rollers
• Pressure exerted by the top rollers
• Surface characteristics of the top rollers
• Fluting of the bottom rollers
• Roller setting / roller gauge
• Level of draft
• Distribution of draft between the various drafting zones
Roller Hardness
a. Axial flutes Used in back rollers. Creates vibration.
b. Inclined / diagonal flutes Used in middle and front rollers. No vibration,
therefore suitable for high speeds.
c. Knurled flutes Used for aprons
Front zone gauge Back zone gauge
Total draft 8 Front zone Back zone
draft 4 draft 2
Auto leveler
• An auto leveler measures the sliver thickness variations and then
continuously alters the draft by servo-controlled drafting system so
that more draft is applied to the thick places, and less draft to thin
places with the result that the sliver delivered becomes more
uniform.
• Besides an improvement in product appearance, auto leveling can
also contribute to better productive efficiency, fewer end-breakages
in subsequent processes, less waste, and constant process condition.
Classification
Auto leveler may be classified into three main groups according to the
basic principle of operation:
a. Open loop;
b. Closed lop and
c. Combined loop (use of two or more separate control loops to
correct a single process).
Open loop
• The open loop control principle can be used for the correction of fairly short-term
variations. It is represented in Figure, where the solid lines indicate the flow of fibers
through the machine, and the broken lines represent the flow of information in the auto
leveler unit. The control unit compares the measurement signal with the reference signal.
The control unit accordingly increases, leaves unaltered, or decreases the speed to the
back or front rollers of the process to give the required draft just when the measured
material has reached the point at which draft is applied.
Open loop
• In open-loop system, there is no check on delivered sliver. In other words, the changes in draft are
solely based on the mass variation in the input material.
• Open-loop system is mainly used in 2nd or finisher draw frames.
Detection methods of material variation
Scanning rollers (Tongue and Groove): This is the most commonly used method for
measuring variations in sliver. Usually, two material forwarding rollers are used. One
is grooved and fixed at its axis and the other is relatively movable on its axis. The
relative movement corresponding to the volume of the material passing through
gives the instantaneous value required for the regulation operation.
The advantage of this principle lies in its insensitivity
to variations in the characteristics of the raw material
with the possible exception of bulk.
Groove Tongue
Closed loop
• This system is used for the correction of long-term and medium-term variations. The control unit
compares the measurement signal with the reference signal and then determines the output of the
regulator which provides the variable speed to the process to give the required draft.
• Closed loop system is mainly used in carding machines.
• Here a certain length of material (Correction length) will always remain unlevelled.