Integrated Composite Spinning (ICS) System
Md. Abu Sayed
Founder of Textile Apex
Pabna Textile engineering college, Pabna, Bangladesh
Email: sayed1952@facebook.com
Integrated Composite Spinning (ICS)
Integrated Composite Spinning (ICS) is based on the concept of combining filament yarns with staple fibers to produce a so-called ‘composite yarn’. In the late 1960s, the father and son team of Emilian and Andrew Bobkowicz of Montreal, Canada, introduced an integrated multi-component spinning technique, which they identified as the Bobtex ICS process. Since then, advances have been made in technique and yarn varieties which have led to applications in industrial, environmental, and a wide range of consumer products. There have been many approaches to spinning composite yarns, including the creation of core spun yarns on a ring frame and wrap-spun yarn using hollow-spindle technology.
Production of ICS Yarn
The process entails passing a mono-filament or multi-filament strand through a molten proprietary polypropylene alloy and then immediately embedding part of the length of staple fibres into the polymeric resin. The filament may be round, flat, fibrillated tape, or tubular mono-filament, each of which may be highly oriented or of nearly crystalline structure (the latter aids acceptance and retention of the subsequent twist). The resin is fed into the system in pellet form and melted (as for melt spinning) to serve as a bonding agent. After the filament (the carrier or core) is passed through and coated with the polymeric resin, a predetermined variety and length of staple fibre is superimposed upon and bonded by compression to the polymeric coated continuous filament core. The ICS yarn is then given a twist at high speed, cooled and wound on spools. This is all done in a continuous sequence of operations on one machine at rates of up to 2500 feet per minute.
Advantages in ICS Yarn Production:
1. Significant economies can be achieved in ICS yarn production.
2. Cost of manufacture is substantially lower than that of ring or open-end spinning, while production speed is greater.
3. The carrier filament is less likely to break during production, which reduces downtime (loss of production due to interruption of operation).
4. Any short or medium randomly arranged staple fibres can be used without involving carding, drawing or roving operations.
5. Further raw material economies are realized since the finished yarn will contain 20 to 50 percent of the polymer resin, which is lower in cost than the staple fibres used in conventional ring or open-end spinning.
Characteristics of ICS Yarn:
1. ICS yarn can have high tensile strength, depending upon the filament core, the polymer resin substrate, the staple, and the twist.
2. The synergistic effect of the components contributes to the strength.
3. The yarn tends to be uniform in diameter.
4. Abrasion resistance of fabrics made of ICS yarn is good because after the staple is rubbed away, the polymer substrate must be worn through, and then the filament core must be abraded.
5. Different colors can be used to incorporate desirable properties, effects and appearances.
6. However, there is difficulty in obtaining uniform color in dyeing due to the difficulty of dye penetration into the polymer substrate; the result is a heather effect. Work on improved dyeing techniques is being pursued.
Reference:
- Advances in Filament Yarn Spinning of Textiles and Polymers Edited by Dong Zhang
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Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. Mr. Kiron is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.
