1. Introduction

1.1 Polyester fibre - staple fibres and filament yarns - together is the largest textile fibre produced worldwide (24.48 million tons) in 2004.. It alone accounts for 36.30% of all textile fibres produced and constitutes 64.45% of all manmade fibres made. Please look at the values given below in Table1

* Mr. Nanal could be contacted on his e-mail id: synanal@yahoo.com

Also, polyester has grown at an impressive rate of 6 % per year world wide (15 % in Asia) against 3 % for all fibres put together. Thus polyester is the most popular textile fibre today and will remain so for years to come.

1.2 There are several reasons for the popularity of polyester fibres. Some of the major ones are:

(i) Has a high tensile strength and an excellent abrasion resistance compared to that of natural fibres and some manmades. This combination makes for a high wear life - upto 3 times of fabrics made from natural fibres. Polyester fabrics last and last and last.