Abstract:

This paper investigates the properties of mesta/cotton blend yarn, produced in the short staple spinning system. While some properties such as strength and elongation show improvement, the other properties could be improved by optimizing the process conditions through repeated trials.

Key words: Blend, Cotton, Mesta, Properties.

Introduction

Although cotton is highly versatile with properties suitable for apparel, certain properties that are desirable are not available with cotton. Hence it has become necessary to find out fibres that could bridge the gap between the required and existing properties. One such answer to the problem is provided by mesta which is a bast fibre taken from stalk of the mesta plant. Earlier some research work has been done on some aspects relating to blending of mesta with jute and also jute with viscose. Investigations on blending of jute with mesta fibres have shown that the latter could be a cheaper substitute for the former. Studies on blending of viscose with jute have revealed that yarn irregularity decreased with increase in the viscose component and also the weaving efficiency and fabric quality showed improvements even with 10% viscose in the blend. Studies on the quality assessment of jute and mesta yarns from their fibre properties show that the tenacity of jute and mesta yarns has been related to bundle tenacity and fineness and the multiple correlation coefficient has been found to be 0.8. The earlier researches evidently point out the importance of mesta fibre with regard to properties. Hence this research attempts to investigate the effect of blending of mesta with cotton.

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About the Authors

Mr. N. Gokarneshan is associated with NIFT TEA College of Knitwear Fashion, Tirupur and N. Jegadeesan, C. Manikandan, S. Premkumar, B. Shanmugam & M. Ganesh Kumar are with the Department of Textile Technology, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore, India.