Lecture-1:

General overview
on Textile Fibers

Fahmida Faiza
Fiber
• Fiber is the first elementary raw material of textile manufacturing. It is
either natural or man made, staple or filament.
• Natural fibers are those fibers that are directly produced at nature,
usually at plants, animals or minerals.
• Man made synthetic fibers or artificial or chemical fibers are usually
manufactured from chemical agents.
• Regenerated fibers are produced from solutions of natural polymer or
derivatives of the natural polymer.
Textile Fiber
• Textile fiber is a class of materials which are
- natural or manufactured
- can take only tensile force not compression
- and spun into yarn by twisting together
- or also converting into fabric (nonwoven) direct from fiber.
• Any substance, natural or manufactured will be considered as a textile
fiber if it has or posses the following parameters:
- High length to width ratio (at least 500 times longer than it’s lateral direction. i.e. L
(Length of the fiber) /D (Diameter of fiber)>500)
- Flexibility/ stiffness. (can give any shape)
- Dye ability.
- Good strength and elongation.
Textile Fiber (Contd.)
• Fiber can be a continuous filament or is in discrete piece called staple
fiber.
Classification of textile fibers
Formation of Fiber
• Most of the fibers are constructed by long chain of polymer molecules
which lay alongside each other and are cemented together by
different bonds.
• A Polymer is a long molecule (macromolecule) composed of hundred
small chemical repeating structural units.
• The molecular weight of a polymer is proportional to the degree of
polymerization and structure of monomer (smallest structural unit).
Formation of Fiber (Natural Fiber)
• Natural fiber is formed in nature by natural way of polymerization.
Generally natural polymer has a long chain which means it is
constructed with many natural units.
• The structure of polymer depends on cultivation and environment of
growing up period.
 Standard construction
Model of Textile Fiber

• A fiber is composed with

many fibrillar bundles and
each fibril is constructed
by many polymer chains.
These polymers chain are
arranged in parallel order
(known as crystalline
region) as well as some are
disoriented also (known as
amorphous region).
Longitu
dinal &
cross-
sectional
views of
natural
fibers.