Technology of Yarn Production

(Combing, Roving Preparation & Ring Spinning)

Prof. R. Chattopadhyay
Department of Textile Technology
Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi

Lecture - 04
Introduction to Comber Part-2

Source separation principle we are going to discuss. Stage I.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:25)

Imagine that there is a sliver in front of you as it is shown in the slide and we are
gripping the slider by the clamp 1 and the clamp 1 is let us say is at a distance x from
the edge of the slider. Now what will happen fibre line under the clamp will be
gripped at different locations along their length, as you can see in the diagram and
now let us pass a comb consisting of very fine needles through the right-hand side of
the fringe.

What is going to happen? All fibres which are not really gripped by the clamp 1, all
those fibres are basically loose in the fringe and they will be removed as shown by the
diagram the fibre A, fibre B and fibre C as we see that these fibres are not really
gripped by clamp 1 and therefore as soon as we pass the needles of the comb through
the fringe these loose fibres will be removed from the fringe.

Now the combed fringe which will be left and being gripped by the clamp 1 will have
fibres projecting out on the right hand side of the clamp and the length of this
projected out portions is going to vary between 0 to capital L where capital L is the
length of the longest fibre in the population.
(Refer Slide Time: 02:08)

After this we move on to stage II. The diagrams are shown on the right hand side.
Now place another clamp as shown here clamp 2 on the right side of clamp 1 at a
distance small d from clamp 1 which is shown in the diagram. Now clamp 1 has to be
opened so that the fibres are not gripped now. Now clamp 2 is now closed. So the
fibres which are under clamp 2 they are actually gripped by clamp 2.

So if I now pull clamp 2 towards the right hand side what is going to happen? Fibers
which are gripped by clamp 2 will all be removed. Therefore as shown in the diagram
that these fibres are the fibres which are gripped by clamp 2. But even though the left
hand projected end may go beyond clamp 1 because clamp 1 is not really holding
those fibre right now because we have opened the clamp.

As we pull this clamp 2 all the fibres which are gripped by clamp 2 will be removed
as a fringe. And now the length of the fibres held by clamp to if we try to find out
what are the lengths of these fibres which are gripped by clamp 2 or those which are
being removed by clamp 2, this length will vary between d to l. Because even a fibre
like shown here if it is a fibre of length d if it is placed like this then this fibre is going
to be gripped by clamp 2.
And when I will remove it the fibre as short as d also will be removed and becomes a
part of the detached fringe. Thus the fibres having length in between d to l as shown
in the diagram will be separated out from rest of the fibres. Now we move on to the
next slide.
(Refer Slide Time: 04:24)

So let us say that is stage III and you see the diagram on the left hand corner of the
slide. So that is this stage III. Here now we are shifting clamp 1 because part of the so
first of all we remove the loose fibres and we throw them out. Now what we did after
that? And we brought clamp 2 and removed some fibres and the fibres which are
gripped by clamp 2 are varying in length between small d to l.

After this we shift clamp 1 to the left hand side by a small amount f as shown in the
diagram. If you see the green rectangle, which is representing clamp 1, so the clamp 1
has shifted with left hand side by small amount f and we have again gripped the sliver
or the lap whatever it is? And result what is going to happen? The trailing ends of
many fibres having length between l to f + d will fall in front of clamp 1.

Because there will be some fibres projecting out from here to there. This is the
previous position of the clamp 1. So there will be some fibres which are earlier
projecting out till d. Their trailing end may still continue and go beyond clamp 1 also.
Some of them also may the trailing ends may terminate in front of clamp 1. So there
are many fibres depending upon their length, depending upon their position.
Some of them may go beyond clamp 1 and it will gripped by clamp 1. Some of them
may be going here and terminate somewhere here like I am drawing some lines like
this or something like this. So all these fibres are now not gripped by clamp 1, so
because their trailing end is not reaching the location of the clamp 1. So now what we
do?

Fibers in the length category vary from 0 to f + d where f is the distance by which the
clamp 1 was moved backward and d is the distance between the two clamps. They
become loose. All those fibres will be loose in the fringe and they will be in front of
clamp 1. Now if we pass the comb again, the comb is going to remove the loose
fibres only from the fringe.

And what will happen that all fibres which are loose now and having length varying
between 0 to f + d will be removed and these are the fibres which are basically the
short fibres. So once we remove this fibres, that is this group of fibres we will be left
with a again comb fringe gripped by clamp 1 and in that comb fringe the projected out
portion of the fibres will be varying between 0 to capital L where capital L is the
length of longest fibres. So this is how we repeat this process.
(Refer Slide Time: 08:09)

We go to stage IV let us say now and what we are going to do? This clamp 2 is now
brought in again and placed at a distance d as we did earlier from clamp 1 and
similarly we repeat the same process. Clamp 1 we open it out. Clamp 2 will be
gripping all the fibres which are here. But this is placed at a distance d from clamp 1.
After gripping all these fibres now clamp 2 will be moved forward. So length of fibres
removed by clamp 2 will therefore in this case also will be varying between d to
capital L.
(Refer Slide Time: 08:58)

So this is the way if we repeat this process again and again then clamp 2 will find will
always hold fibres of length varying between d to capital L. And the combed out
material that is removed by the comb will be varying in length between 0 to f + d. So
therefore there will be some fibres varying between d to f + d whose fate is uncertain.

They can be separated out as long or as short fibres depending upon their position in
this slider or in the lap. This is how we can sort out short fibres from the longer ones
and this is the principle which we will be actually following when we have the
combing machine. So the combing machine follows exactly the same principle the
way we have described.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:02)
This is the only way to separate out short fibres from longer fibres. There is no other
means right now to really segregate the entire population into two groups. So we can
say that the separation process in actual comber works on the principle just discussed.
The nipper plates actually acts as clamp 1. They are going to grip the lap. The
detaching roller will act as clamp 2.

Now instead of taking the plate backwards as we are doing here, the clamp 1 was
always shifted backwards in order to grip fresh sliver or fresh lab. What we do in the
actual case? The lap is fed forward by a predetermined amount. That is what we do in
the actual machine. Then instead of we do not take back the clamp in this case
because the plates, nipper plates will be acting as clamp 1.

They are fixed to space. The lap is moved forward. The detaching rollers which
behaves like clamp 2 also do not move laterally as we are doing it here that clamp 2 is
gripping the fibres and again we are moving it forward directions in order to remove
the long fibres from the short ones. In this case what we do? We do not really move
detaching rollers laterally. They remain fixed in positions.

But they turn and because that they rotate they can remove the fringe that is the
especially the longer fibres from the shorter ones. And what we do that the comb
fringe is brought closer to the detaching roller as we were doing the clamp 2 was
being brought closer to clamp 1 and we maintain a certain distance between these two
and that distance was d.
Similar thing we do in the case of actual combing machine also the nipper assembly
will move forward and we will bring the fringe closer to the detaching roller nips,
which actually we will discuss in more details when you discuss the combing
machine. And the detaching rollers will therefore as they rotate they will remove the
comb fringe.

This thing the about the working of the machines will be more clear as we go to the
you know to our next class when we will discuss in more details about the machine
and its working. So this is the process by which we keep on separating the shorter
group of fibres from the longer ones. The process is discontinuous in nature as we
have seen in this case.

And with this we close the discussion on the principle of separation of fibres. Now
we move on to our next topic. Thank you.