Class Notes on Combing Technology (Part – 2)
Comber: Preparation Of Feed Stock
Requirement of preparatory process
The raw material delivered by the card is unsuitable for combing both as regards form and
fiber arrangement.
i) If card slivers were fed to the comber, then true nipping by the nipping plates would
occur only on the high points, with the risk that the nippers could not retain the less
strongly compressed edge zones of the slivers. These could then be pulled out as clumps
by the cylinder combs. A sheet with greatest possible degree of evenness is
therefore required as in feed to the comber. (as in fig. 1)
ii) A good parallel disposition of fibers within the sheet is a further prerequisite. If the fibers
lie across the strand, even long fibers are presented to the cylinder combs as if they were
short fibers (as shown in fig. 2) and they are eliminated as such. This represents
unnecessary loss of good fibers.
Figure 1: Clamped slivers between the nipper plates Figure 2: Fibers projecting from the nippers
iii) The fiber arrangement must also be taken in consideration, i.e. in this case the disposition
of the hooks. As it is known over 50% of fibers in card sliver have trailing, 10% of leading
type and 10% double hooks (Figure 3). If the comber is to straighten these hooks, as it is
intended to, then fibres must be presented to it with leading hooks.
iv) When the slivers are transferred from one stage of processing to another, a reversal in
the hooks takes place as shown in figure 4. The combing process assists a great deal in
straightening leading hooks. It is important, therefore to arrange the process preceding
combing in such a way that the majority of hooks entering the combing process are
leading type. The positioning of two processing stages (drawing and lap
forming) between carding and combing fulfills this requirement.
Figure 3: Different types of fiber hooks
Figure 4: Hooks reversal during processing
v) Another important criterion is the card sliver that has a direct impact on combing
performance in sliver cohesiveness. The card sliver used in combing preparation should have
a high level of cohesiveness. A suitable card sliver should have at least a 100 m breaking
length. The combing process on the other hand produces a sliver that has poor cohesiveness
due to the great deal of straightening and parallelization of fibers. Typically, a combed sliver
has a cohesion level of less than 35m breaking length.
Methods of preparation:
In general, two types of systems are currently in use –
A. Lap/Web Doubling Process (classical method) employing a Sliver Lap Machine
followed by a Ribbon Lap Machine;
B. Sliver Doubling Process (e.g. the Super Lap of Whitin, Unilap 3 of Rieter) in which a
normal draw frame provides the first passage and subsequently a Sliver Doubling Machine
follows as the second passage.
Before the introduction of modern high performance machine, it was considered that the
sliver doubling method tended to be advantageous for processing shorter-staple material (i.e.
with low-medium of noil) and the advantage of former method became more apparent for
longer staple material (i.e. for higher noil%). Nowadays, with modern preparation system, it
is difficult to detect any differences between the two techniques, thus trend towards later
method is become established.
Conventional (Lap Doubling) method:
Sliver Lap (D=16 ... 24, V=1.1 ....3.5) Machine :
In the conventional (sliver lap/ribbon lap) method a number of card slivers giving a
doubling of 16 to 24 are fed to a sliver lap machine, which consists of two roller assisted feed
table, a guide bridge along with several guide rollers followed by pairs of drafting
arrangements, and a web deflecting plate in each drafting system for superimposition of
drafted web over a web table, subsequently followed by two pairs of calender rollers for
drawing the superimposed web to the winding assembly.
The strong compression created between the calender rollers form a fibre sheet that is
rolled into a lap in the winding assembly which consists of two winding rollers and a lap tube
holding device with a lap weighting frame which has been raised due to increase in diameter
in lap in course of which the pressure increases which can be set by adjustment of setting
screws.
The machine stops when a set lap length is reached, whereupon exchange of empty
tube for the full lap is affected automatically.
In newer installations, an automatic transport carries the ejected lap of sliver lap
machine to the subsequent ribbon lap machine.
A pair of lap varying in weight from 50 to 70 g/m, the lap width of about 230 to 300
mm (9.5 to 12 inch) and diameter of 500mm and weight of to 27Kg. Draft ratio commonly is
1.5 to 2.5.
Ribbon Lap (D=4-6, V=3-8) Machine:
Laps from the sliver lap machine are taken to the ribbon lap machine. Most ribbon
lappers are four to six heads, having independent sections, each of which process a single
sliver lap.
The basic concept is the same as that of the sliver lap machine, except the ribbon lap
version has an unrolling table for the laps in place of the two feed tables of the sliver lap
machine.
The thin sheets of lap unrolled from the various heads are run through the drafting
system, subsequently led down over a curved deflector plate, which turns at a right angles,
inverts them on a web table and superimpose one upon the others, finally passed through
calender rollers to the lap winding device which is identical to that used in sliver lap machine
but winds a lap with an axial length of 300mm.
The drafts used in the ribbon lapper are usually equal to the no. of heads, so the
weight per meter of the ribbon lap is about the same as that of the sliver lap.
Ribbon lap machine has the advantage that they are double in web ferm and thereby
achieve a high degree of evenness in the transverse (not in the longitudinal) direction of the
lap sheet. However, when the results are compared with those achieved by the new
generation of sliver doubling machines, in most cases it is difficult to identify any differences
in quality.
Specifications of Sliver Lap & Ribbon Lap Machine:
Particulars Sliver Lap M/c Ribbin Lap M/c
(e.g. Rieter UNILAP 2) (e.g. Rieter UNILAP 4)
Raw material Cotton upto 15/8’’ staple length same as sliver lap
Feed stock upto 80ktex/ drafting head upto80ktex/ drawing head
Doubling 16-24 4-6
Range of draft 1.31-3.03 3.48-8.04
Tube Length 225-300mm 300mm
Lap weight upto 25 kg upto 20 kg
Delivery speed 85-100m/min 85m/min
Theoretical production up to 480kg/h up to 480kg/h
Per machine
Sliver Doubling Method :
The sliver-lap/ribbon-lap is no longer used in modern mills except in situations where
very fine yarns from extra long staple fibers are produced. The breaker drawing/lap-forming
method is used for most combing preparation which is also known as Sliver Doubling
Process.
Whitin developed a sliver doubling machine as shown in above figure (known as Super
lap machine) where About 20 drawing slivers are fed to a vertical 2/3 draft system, and
drafted 3 to 5x.
Three such units are assembled in the machine. The laps are super imposed (width of
293 mm =11.5 inch) and through a pair of calander rolls, the batt is compressed and the lap
is formed.
Here, total doubling of 60 with draft range of 3.5-4.5 is usually employed after a pre-
drawing in a draw frame (D=8-10 & V=6-8).
The super lap machine of Whitin
This method is suitable for a wide range of fiber length from medium to long staple. It
involves two steps: a standard drawing process in which a number of card slivers (typically
20 – 24) are drawn together to form a drawn sheet of slivers, and a lap winding process to
form a lap weighing 50 – 70 g/m, which is ready to be combed (fig below). Rieter uses
heavier lap weights 65 to 80 Ktex, the delivery speed up to 100m/min. The production rate is
up 360 kg/h. Laps of up to 25 Kg weight, 250-300 mm width and CV% evenness of 0.3% to
0.5% are produced. The Unilap system is designed to achieve fully automatic doffing and
transportation of laps to the combing.
Combing preparation
(pre-drawing and lap forming)