Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the only manufacturing method, and many other methods were later developed to form textile structures based on their intended use. Knitting and non-woven are other popular types of fabric manufacturing. In the contemporary world, textiles satisfy the material needs for versatile applications, from simple daily clothing to bulletproof jackets, spacesuits, and doctor's gowns.
Lyocell is a semi-synthetic fiber used to make textiles for clothing and other purposes. It is a form of regenerated cellulose made by dissolving pulp and dry jet-wet spinning. Unlike rayon made by some of the more common viscose processes, Lyocell production does not use carbon disulfide, which is toxic to workers and the environment. Lyocell was originally trademarked as Tencel in 1982.
Textile manufacturing is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods such as clothing, household items, upholstery and various industrial products.
Textile fibers, threads, yarns and fabrics are measured in a multiplicity of units.
A staple fiber is a textile fiber of discrete length. The opposite is a filament fiber, which comes in continuous lengths. Staple length is a characteristic fiber length of a sample of staple fibers. A fiber is made up of natural substances and is known for being longer than it is wide. It is an essential criterion in yarn spinning, and aids in cohesion and twisting. Compared to synthetic fibers, natural fibers tend to have different and shorter lengths. The quality of natural fibers like cotton is categorized on staple length such as short, medium, long staple, and extra-long. Gossypium barbadense, one of several cotton species, produces extra-long staple fibers. The staple fibers may be obtained from natural and synthetic sources. In the case of synthetics and blends, the filament yarns are cut to a predetermined length.
Scutching is a step in the processing of cotton or the dressing of flax or hemp in preparation for spinning. The scutching process separates the impurities from the raw material, such as the seeds from raw cotton or the straw and woody stem from flax fibers. Scutching can be done by hand or by a machine known as a scutcher. Hand scutching of flax is done with a wooden scutching knife and a small iron scraper. The end products of scutching flax are the long finer flax fibers called line, short coarser fibers called tow, and waste woody matter called shives.
Uster Technologies, in its industry often called USTER, is a Swiss manufacturer of analytical instruments and on-line monitoring systems for the textile industry, based in Uster, Switzerland. It emerged as a management buy-out form of the textile division Zellweger Uster of the Zellweger Luwa Group in 2003. From 2007 until 2012 the company was publicly traded and listed on the main segment of SIX Swiss Exchange. Since 2012 Uster Technologies is a subsidiary of Toyota Industries Corporation.
Cotton classing is the measurement and classification of cotton by its specific physical attributes. This information is attached to individual bales, thus clarifying their value and helping producers market them. For cotton buyers, i.e. the spinning mills, this precise information about the cotton fiber enables them to achieve consistent yarn quality by optimizing raw material selection and blending.
Dimensional stability pertains to a fabric's ability to maintain its initial size and shape even after undergoing wear and care, which is a desirable property. Dimension stability in fabrics or Shrinkage is the change of dimensions in textile products when they are washed or relaxed. The change is always expressed relative to the dimensions before the exposure of washing or relaxing. Shrinkage is also called residual shrinkage and measured in percentage. The major cause of shrinkages is the release of stresses and strains introduced in manufacturing processes. Textile manufacturing is based on the conversion of fiber into yarn, yarn into fabric, includes spinning, weaving, or knitting, etc. The fabric passes through many inevitable changes and mechanical forces during this journey. When the products are immersed in water, the water acts as a relaxing medium, and all stresses and strains are relaxed and the fabric tries to come back to its original state.
Cotton recycling is the process of converting cotton fabric into fibers that can be reused into other textile products.
Lint is the common name for visible accumulations of textile fibers and other materials, usually found on and around clothing. Certain materials used in the manufacture of clothing, such as cotton, linen, and wool, contain numerous, very short fibers bundled together. During the course of normal wear, these fibers may either detach or be jostled out of the weave of which they are part. This is the reason why heavily-used articles such as shirts and towels become thin over time and why such particles accumulate in the lint screen of a clothes dryer.
Cotton maturity is a physical testing parameter of cotton fiber properties testing. It is quantified by the degree of cell wall thickening relative to its perimeter. The maturity of individual cotton fiber is an essential aspect of the cotton classing regarding the aesthetics such as appearance, dye-uptake, etc. High volume instrument (HVI) can test cotton maturity like many other fiber properties, including length, uniformity, micronaire/fineness, strength, color, etc.
A Cotton bale is a standard-sized and weighted pack of compressed cotton lint after ginning. The dimensions and weight may vary with different cotton-producing countries.
Hand feel is the property of fabrics related to the touch that expresses sensory comfort. It refers to the way fabrics feel against the skin or in the hand and conveys information about the cloth's softness and smoothness. Hand feel is an estimated and subjective property of different fabrics, but nowadays, hand feel could be measured and assessed statistically.
Yarn conditioning is fixing the amount of moisture in the yarns. It is possible by conditioning them in a humidified environment or with the help of a conditioning machine.
Plated fabrics are fabrics that have different colors or types of face and back. The fabrics are formed by using different kinds of yarn types or colors to both be invisible on the other side. Different properties of several textile fibers are exploited to obtain various surface interests and patterns. One of the aspects is the thermophysiological and moisture comfort of clothing.
Scouring is a preparatory treatment of certain textile materials. Scouring removes soluble and insoluble impurities found in textiles as natural, added and adventitious impurities, for example, oils, waxes, fats, vegetable matter, as well as dirt. Removing these contaminants through scouring prepares the textiles for subsequent processes such as bleaching and dyeing. Though a general term, "scouring" is most often used for wool. In cotton, it is synonymously called "boiling out," and in silk, and "boiling off."
Dead cotton is a term that refers to unripe cotton fibers that do not absorb dye. Dead cotton is immature cotton or underdeveloped cotton that has poor dye affinity and appears as white specks on a dyed fabric. Daniel Koechlin (1785–1871), who was a manufacturer and a chemist in Mulhouse, established the fact in 1848 that it is dead cotton fibers that resist dye. Other chemists such as Walter Crum, Albin Haller, and Herzog explored and contributed to the subject further. Crum discovered that dead fibers have very thin cell walls.
Medical textiles are various fiber-based materials intended for medical purposes. Medical textile is a sector of technical textiles that focuses on fiber-based products used in health care applications such as prevention, care, and hygiene. The spectrum of applications of medical textiles ranges from simple cotton bandages to advanced tissue engineering. Common examples of products made from medical textiles include dressings, implants, surgical sutures, certain medical devices, healthcare textiles, diapers, menstrual pads, wipes, and barrier fabrics.
Textile testing is the process of measuring the properties and performance of textile materials—textile testing includes physical and chemical testing of raw materials to finished products.
