Bale Breaker | Blowing Room | |||||
Willowing | ||||||
Breaker Scutcher | Batting | |||||
Finishing Scutcher | Lapping | |||||
Carding | Carding Room | |||||
Sliver Lap | ||||||
Combing | ||||||
Drawing | ||||||
Slubbing | ||||||
Intermediate | ||||||
Roving | Fine Roving | |||||
Mule Spinning | - | Ring Spinning | Spinning | |||
Reeling | Doubling | |||||
Winding | Bundling | Bleaching | ||||
Weaving shed | Winding | |||||
Beaming | Cabling | |||||
Warping | Gassing | |||||
Sizing/Slashing/Dressing | Spooling | |||||
Weaving | ||||||
Cloth | Yarn (Cheese)- - Bundle | Sewing Thread |
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design and production of yarn, cloth, clothing, and their distribution. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry.
Cotton is the world's most important natural fibre. In the year 2007, the global yield was 25 million tons from 35 million hectares cultivated in more than 50 countries. There are five stages
Artificial fibres can be made by extruding a polymer, through a spinneret into a medium where it hardens. Wet spinning (rayon) uses a coagulating medium. In dry spinning (acetate and triacetate), the polymer is contained in a solvent that evaporates in the heated exit chamber. In melt spinning (nylons and polyesters) the extruded polymer is cooled in gas or air and then sets. All these fibres will be of great length, often kilometres long.
Artificial fibres can be processed as long fibres or batched and cut so they can be processed like a natural fibre.
Natural fibres are either from animals (sheep, goat, rabbit, silk-worm) mineral (asbestos) or from plants (cotton, flax, sisal). These vegetable fibres can come from the seed (cotton), the stem (known as bast fibres: flax, Hemp, Jute) or the leaf (sisal). Without exception, many processes are needed before a clean even staple is obtained- each with a specific name. With the exception of silk, each of these fibres is short being only centimeters in length, and each has a rough surface that enables it to bond with similar staples.
There are some indications that weaving was already known in the Palaeolithic. An indistinct textile impression has been found at Pavlov, Moravia. Neolithic textiles were found in pile dwellings excavations in Switzerland and at El Fayum, Egypt at a site which dates to about 5000 BC.