Volume 6, Issue 1

The use of nanotechnology in the textile industry has increased rapidly due to its unique and valuable properties. The present status of nanotechnology use in textiles is reviewed, with an emphasis on improving various properties of textiles.

Agave Americana L. fibres have quite important textile potential. In this paper, we demonstrate this potential by studying the extraction of these fibres from leaves, their physical properties such as fineness, density and their mechanical behaviour in tensile tests. The intrinsic variability of all these properties is also studied, showing natural maturity and ageing of fibres.

Extensive coverage of previous work in the area of cloth fell movement, the circumstances of its beginning, and its influences are reviewed. The review also includes previous work describing factors that affect cloth fell movement. The advantages and disadvantages of the methods used hitherto are underlined and the need of a satisfactory measuring method is emphasised.

A new flexible cloth fell movement measuring device, hereafter referred to as the ‘needlemechanical device’, has been developed to facilitate the use, for the first time, of a measuring position just 2 millimetres from the cloth fell. In addition, the experimental setup was built in a combination between the needle-mechanical device and the Weave Master to record the dynamic cloth fell’s movement cycles on-loom. The results of these measurements were analysed and discussed in the light of the theory developed in part I.

This paper describes a new measuring algorithm for estimating the exterior average braided angle of a three-dimensional (3-D) braided composite material preform] based on image texture. In this project, an advanced filtered algorithm for an image of a 3-D braided composite material preform is developed on the basis of mathematical morphology. Median filter algorithms for mathematical morphology are applied in the system. The polar spectrum and main properties are investigated in the paper. Theory shows that a rotated texture’s polar spectrum is an approximate translation of the unrotated texture’s polar spectrum, and that the degree of each translation approximates to the corresponding rotation of the surface. The system was tested on both carbon and glass fibre preforms. We have obtained very encouraging experimental results, which show that the proposed method is feasible. So far, the research is a new development for measuring 3-D braided composite material preforms. The work will lay the foundation for establishing a test standard for 3-D braided composite material in China.

Computer image analysis techniques used for identifying textile products, especially linear textile products, are presented in this paper, together with a brief review of the historical development of these methods. Automatic and semi-automatic image correction methods are described, which are often applied for identification of linear textile products, and can also be used to identify spliced yarn-end connections.

Carpet waste has successfully been converted into acoustic underlay materials that compete with commercial counterparts both in terms of performance and costs. This paper builds on an earlier paper [Miraftab et al, Autex Res.J.5(2), 96-105 (2005).] where granular/fibre mixing ratios, binder concentration and particle size distribution were shown to play a major role in maximising impact sound insulation capabilities of developed underlays. Product optimisation with respect to the particle size as governed by the aperture dimension and mean effective fibre length is further explored in this paper, and the developed underlay is compared with a selection of commercially available acoustic underlays. The results show that a 2mm-aperture screen at the granulating chamber output yields a waste stream with grains in the size range of 0.5-1.0mm and a mean effective fibre length of 2.75 mm which was most suitable to work with, and gave rise to samples with the best impact sound reduction performance. The optimised sample of 10mm recycled underlay (U2) appeared to perform better than most commercial systems tested. The manufactured underlay withstood, and in some instances, outperformed, during the standard tests as required within the BS 5808 protocol. The study concludes that recycling carpet waste to produce quality acoustic underlay with desirable impact sound insulation characteristics is technically feasible, and a viable alternative to landfill or incineration.