Melt spinning

 Melt spinning is a process for producing filaments.

 However, only those polymers that can be melted without undergoing thermal
degradation can be spun into fibres/filaments using this process.
 Some of the typical examples are nylon-6, nylon 66, poly(ethylene terephthalate) and
poly(propylene)..

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

 Various components of a melt spinning line
• A typical melt spinning setup consists of a melting device-normally an
extruder,
• Manifold- distribution arrangement for the melt,
• Metering pump- device to regulate polymer flow rate,
• Spin-pack- arrangement to filter and extrude the polymer through fine
holes,
• Quench duct- cooling zone for the extruded polymer filament to turn solid,
• Winder- a device to pull and wind the solidified filament.
• The entire line from extruder output to the spin pack are maintained at a
constant temperature, which is called the spinning temperature.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi
 Extruder and its functions
In earlier days, the polymer chips were melted using heating grids, however, now, extruders have completely
replaced other melting arrangements.
Even when polymer is fed to spinning section in melted form directly from a continuous polymerization line,
the extruder is often used as the first device in the spinning line.
This is because an extruder performs multiple functions.
Apart from melting solid polymer chips, an extruder homogenizes the melt by mixing it at various stages.
Homogenization is an important aspect in order to ensure continuous spinning without any breaks or non-
uniformity in the spun yarns.
Functions:
 Extruder compresses the polymer fluid to remove any trapped gasses including air/nitrogen that is drawn
along with the chips as they enter the extruder.
 It also helps in metering the flow rate in the spinning line.
 It is the first control of flow rate.
 Finally it acts as a polymer fluid pump and provides the necessary pressure that is required by the
polymer to flow from the extruder to the metering pump.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

Design of the extruder
In order for the extruder to carry out all these functions effectively, extruder
design is very critical.
Figure shows the schematic diagram of a typical extruder.
Feeding zone- where the chips enter the extruder,
Melting zone- where chips melt with the heat supplied by the heaters and
the heat generated by the dissipation of the polymeric viscous forces.
Compression zone- where the material is compressed into a smaller volume to
push out trapped gasses.
This is followed by a Metering zone, which is the narrowest part of the
extruder channels. Because of its constricted size, only a limited amount of
polymer melt may be dragged through this zone depending upon the screw
rpm.
Since the metering zone does not allow the entire material coming to the
compression zone to pass through, the excess polymer is pushed back
resulting in continuous mixing.
At the end of the metering zone is the head of the extruder screw, which may
have spikes (optional feature) for further mixing/homogenization.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

The design of extruder and its screw may vary considerably depending upon the material being processed
and the principal functions required for processing that material.

The design of the screw, which includes the length to diameter ratio (aspect ratio of 1:25 or 1:40), angle of
the flanges, etc. is kept in accordance to the specific heat capacity and rheological behaviour of the polymer
it is meant to process.

Higher the amount of heat required to be transferred to the polymer, longer is the residence time. For
example for PP, since the heat capacity of the polymer is large and the molecular weight is often high, it
needs longer residence time in an extruder to attain lower melt viscosity. A considerable amount of heat has
to be transferred to the polymer to melt it and bring it to the temperature of spinning.

Similarly, if a polymer is to be blended with an additive, the extruder design should allow effective mixing
and homogenization, which is again the function of the residence time and the shear rate.
The design of the screw also has significant effect on the heat generated during shear melting of the
polymer, and the energy needed for melting the polymer chips is provided by both the heaters and the
mechanical action of the screw.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi
 Manifold
• Polymer flows from the extruder to the metering pump and spin packs through a
manifold, which is a simple network of cylindrical pipes as shown in Figure 1 .
• Each pipe is connected to one metering pump.
• The manifold is designed in such a way, that polymer takes the same amount of
time from the extruder outlet to any of the metering pump whether it is located
near or far away from the extruder.
• This allows the polymers to have same thermal history, hence the same
rheological properties, at all positions of the spinning. The same residence time is
achieved by keeping the length and bends of each pipe same.
• Also, the pressure drop across each pipe is kept same so that the polymer gets
divided equally. When the distribution lines are long, at times, static mixers are also
installed inside distribution pipes. These allow shear mixing of polymer melt within
a pipe to keep it homogenized.
Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi
 Static mixer

A static mixer is a network of channels interconnected with each other like a honey comb
web, which takes the polymeric fluid from the periphery to the centre and that from the
centre to the periphery.

Also, in this process it induces shear mixing among the various fluid elements.

Such mixing becomes necessary because in a pipe flow, fluid travels in a parabolic velocity
profile, which means the fluid velocity is maximum at the center and is much lower near
the pipe walls.

This nonuniform flow profile across the cross-section of the pipe develops due to the
stresses exerted on the fluid by the stationary walls.
Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi
 Metering pump

Metering pump has a very important function in spinning as it

regulates the through put of the polymer from the spinneret.

Throughput rate and the winding speed (i.e. take-up speed)

together decide the denier of the spun filament.

A metering pump must deliver constant throughput

irrespective of the back pressure felt by it from the choking
filters in a spin pack.

Therefore, only the positive displacement pumps are used

for metering polymer melt in spinning.

Mass flow rate = volume between teeth x no. of teeth in a gear x 2x rpm x density of melt

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

Typical design of a gear type metering pump is shown in Figure.
The pump has two gears whose teeth are intermeshed with each other at the center.
The gear pair sits in a cavity made into a metal plate and with tip of the teeth in very
close clearance from the wall of the cavity.
The polymer enters from the one side of the intermeshed zone and fills the empty
spaces between the two teeth of each gear as they emerge out from the intermesh.
This fluid is then taken around the gears by their teeth as shown in the figure. When
the polymer reaches the other side of the intermesh, it is forced out of the spaces
between the teeth as the teeth enter the intermesh zone.
The emptied out or pushed out fluid then exits from the other side of the intermesh
to the spin pack.
The quantity of the fluid passing through the metering pump is given by the number
of teeth getting filled and emptied in a unit time.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

 Spin pack
• Spin pack is the heart of the spinning system.
• It has a reservoir of polymeric fluid-that dampens the pulsating
effect of the gear metering pump, a filter pack- that removes
the solid particles from the melt.
• These may be polymer gels, agglomerated additives,
contamination, etc.
• Normally a filter is a set of filters containing 3-5 individual filter
meshes, where the first filter is a coarser filter followed by the
finer ones.
• The lowest filter is the finest of all which makes sure that no
particle other than those desired (such as well dispersed micron
sized particles of an additive such as TiO2, a delustering agent
often used in fibres) is pushed through the spinneret hole.
• Improper filtration will clog the spinneret hole leading to a lower
throughput and a lower denier of that filament, and eventually,
result in a break of the spinning filament.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

It is often believed that if a particle in polymer melt is bigger than 1/10 th of the diameter of the final
filament, it will result in a catastrophic break in the filament during spinning or post spinning operations.

Not only should the particles of the additives be smaller in size, they should not agglomerate to form
bigger particles. Addition of additives in polymer melt is a challenging proposition and all care must be
taken to properly disperse the additive particles.

If the polymer is being recycled, often a large amount of dust particles and gel particles are present in the
melt. In such spinning lines, polymer is either filtered using a centralized filtration unit (CFU) located just
after the extruder or placing additional filtration medium such as sand inside the spin pack cavity (melt
reservoir) before the filter pack.

Once the polymer is filtered, it reaches a distributor. Function of the distributor, as the name suggests is to
ensure proper supply of the polymer melt to all spinneret holes. Also, it makes sure that there is no dead
volume and all the polymer coming to the spin pack is being utilized in spinning.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

 Spinneret
It is simply a thick metal plate with fine holes drilled through them.
The hole has larger diameter towards the inside surface with conical entry.
This allows entry of the polymer melt with less pressure drop.
The conical entrance facilitates alignment of the molecules to some extent to enable them to enter without much force.
However, the most important dimension in the spinneret is the length and diameter of the final cylindrical spinneret
(hole).
Polymer passes through it in a shear flow and comes out on the other end as an extruded strand.
Spinneret plates for monofilaments have single spinneret hole with diameter of about 0.5-1 mm, while those for
multifilament have several holes with diameters in a range of 0.5-0.05 mm.
In case of monofilament spinning, spinneret plate with one hole, spins a single filament which is wound on a bobbin.
The deniers used for such filaments are in excess of 20.
However, for multi filament yarn, the spinneret plate has several holes arranged in a particular fashion and all the
extruded filaments from this spin-pack are wound together on one bobbin to make a multi filament yarn.
In a multi-hole spinneret plate, holes are placed is staggered configuration so as to allow enough separation from each
other and to allow cooling air to be available to all the filaments in the quenching zone.
Also, the space between the various holes allows filaments to spin independently without sticking to each other during
extrudate swell (also known as die swell) phenomena.
The main role of a spinneret is to impart cross sectional shape to the extruded filaments. The cross section may vary from
circular to trilobal, to hexalobal or hollow, etc. Usually it is thought that spinneret is able to orient polymer chains to
make a fibre. It is not true. Spinneret is much bigger than the dimensions of a polymer chain, and hence, can not induce
orientation in coiled polymers.
Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi
Design and role of quench chamber
The extruded filament from the spinneret is allowed to pass through an air
quench zone (or chamber).
This has mild flow of cooling air at a low temperature (~15- 30 °C) with low to
moderate relative humidity.
The cooling air when comes in contact with the spun filaments, takes away their
heat and facilitates their solidification.
This involves cooling of the polymer past melt crystallization temperature and
eventually to its glass transition temperature. As soon as the glass transition
temperature is reached, the spinning is considered to be complete.
This is because, below glass transition temperature, polymer is in glassy state
and can not extend any further.
The filament speed at which the polymer reaches glass transition temperature
is also the spinning speed of the process. Thereafter, the speed of the filament
does not change and the polymer is wound on a bobbin using a take-up winder.

The uniformity of airflow is extremely important in controlling the variation of

filament diameter in a spun fibre. It has been estimated that a sudden but small
change of 1% in quench air velocity may bring about a change of about 0.3% in
cross sectional area of the filament.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

• The quench chambers may be of various configurations- cross flow or radial flow.
• In cross flow the cooling air flows from one side to the other side of the spinneret
across the cross-section of the spinning path (a) . This kind of quench chamber is
used when a limited number of filaments are being spun in a filament yarn.
• This is because the filaments at the far end (in the direction of air flow) of the
spinneret get air which has been heated by the filaments at the near end. This
problem becomes acute when a very large number of spinneret holes are used in a
staple fibre spinning line for making a tow.
• In such cases 10,000 or more holes are normally present in a single spinneret.
• For quenching this large number of filaments, radial flow –either of outflow (b) or
in-flow (c) type is used.
• In outflow (b) , the cooling air enters at the centre of the spinneret and flows out
radially while in the in-flow type, the air enters from the periphery of the spinneret
and flows into the centre of the spinning path. This air then passes to the take up
room along with the filament tow.
• The radial quenching can accommodate a large number of filaments as more
number of spinneret holes can be arranged in concentric circles. Since filaments get
more uniform cooling in radial flow than in cross flow, the structure and properties
of the various filaments are closer to each other. Fibers with delicate dimensions are
also spun in a radial type quench chamber.
Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi
 Spin Finish
• Normally the spinning room and the take-up room are separated by a floor
and the two have different atmospheric pressure from each other.
• The spinning room is at a slightly higher pressure (by 10 mm H2O) than take-
up room.
• This allows part of the cooling air to flow along with the delicate freshly
spun filaments.
• The filaments are given a spin finish at the end of the spinning line (just
after the glass transition is reached) by one of the many techniques- kiss-
roll or spray.
• The finish is normally sprayed onto the filaments in high speed spinning
machines.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

 Roles of the spin finish
• (i) Lubrication- to reduce friction between the yarn and the metallic/ceramic parts of the
spinning line.
• (ii) Antistatic property- to allow dissipation of static charge generated due to contact of
yarn with the machine parts.
• (iii) Cohesion- to keep the filaments of a yarn together, so that unwinding becomes easier
from the spun cake.
• Lubrication is provided by aliphatic/alkyl molecules, which have very low vander waals
attraction among them.
• Antistatic properties/cohesion is provided by polar molecules, which have strong hydrogen
or ionic bonding and provide path for charge dissipation.
• Since a spin finish needs both types of molecules, it is generally made by emulsifying alkyl
chain molecules with the help of surfactants in aqueous medium.
• A balance of the two ingredients is important to achieve an optimum of all properties
needed in a spin finish.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi

Take-up winder
The winders may be friction driven ( Figure (a) ), where the
bobbin is driven by a friction roller so that the surface
speed of the winder remains constant through out the
formation of the yarn package.
However, now a days, godets and friction rollers are not
being used in high speed spinning plants. This is because
the yarn when comes in contact with such surfaces can
be abraded and may result in poor quality or poor wind-
up.
Therefore, new winders are used that have bobbins which
are directly driven by a motor (Figure (b)) . In order to
compensate for the increasing speed as the diameter of the
bobbin package changes, an auto feed back mechanism is
installed where the speed of the winder is regulated to
maintain constant tension in the spinning line.

Source: NPTEL, Manufactured Fibre Technology, IIT Delhi