BLENDING

Prof.Dr.S.Kathirrvelu
Professor-Textile Technology
EiTEX-Bahir Dar University

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 BLENDING
4.1. The purpose of blending

Raw materials used in the spinning mill are

always inhomogeneous in their characteristics.
In part, this is inevitable owing to the different
cultivation conditions of natural fibers and the
different production conditions for manmade
fibers. Partly, it is deliberate in order to
influence the end product and the process.

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The basic objective of fibre blending is to
assemble

and combine together the correct proportions of

components so that the relative amounts of each

kind fed to the succeeding process (e.g. carding)

remain constant throughout the whole batch of

material.

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It is clear, therefore, that the product of a
blending

process is not an intimate mixture of fibres,

but

rather a fibre assembly (of slivers, tufts, or

bundles)

in the required proportions and dimensions

to enable the following process to bring
about the necessary fibre-to-fibre mixing.
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Fabrics made from blends of different fibre types

are unlikely to be superior in any one property to

fabrics produced from an individual fibre type, but

fibre blending does enable fabrics to be produced

with combinations of porperties which would be

unattainable by using only one fibre type.

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Blending is performed mainly in order to:

give the required characteristics to

the end product (e.g. blending of man-
made fibers with natural fibers produces
the desired easy-care characteristics);

compensate for variations in the

characteristics of the raw materials
(even cotton of a single origin exhibits
variability and must be blended);

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hold down raw material costs (blending-in
of raw material at low price level);

influence favorably the behavior of the

material during processing (improve the
running characteristics of short staple
material by admixture of carrier fibers); and

achieve effects by varying color, fiber

characteristics

and so on.
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Evaluation of the blend

The evenness of the blend must always be assessed in two

directions: the longitudinal direction and the transverse
direction. Where there is unevenness in the longitudinal
direction, yarn portions exhibit different percentage
distributions of the individual components (Fig. 30).
These

can lead to stripiness. Where there is unevenness in the

transverse direction, the fibers are poorly distributed in
the

yarn section (Fig. 31). This irregularity leads to an uneven

appearance of the finished product.
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 The determination of the evenness of
a blend, e.g. of synthetic and natural
fibers, is costly and not simple. One
component is usually dissolved out or
colored differently.

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De-blending

The spinner aims to distribute the different fibers evenly in

the yarn. For this purpose, he must firstly produce a good

blend at some stage of the process, and secondly be able

to maintain the blend up to the stage of binding into the

yarn. It is a well-known fact that meeting the first of these

requirements is not always easy; sometimes the second is

harder still.

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Fibers of different length, surface structure,
crimp, etc., also behave differently during
movements as individuals. A de-
blending effect can very often arise.

During rolling of fibers in hoppers (bale

openers, hopper feeders), migration of the
components occurs where the fibers have
different structures (e.g. cotton and man-
made fibers). A similar effect is found
during drawing in (TM)-Theory
I Year M.Sc drafting arrangements.
of Spinning 13
Fibers with large differences in length or surface
form (smooth/rough, dyed/undyed, etc.) do not
exhibit the same cohesive contact with each
other.

When a drafting force is applied, they move

differently

this leads to clumping of fibers into clusters and

finally

to de-blending.

Pneumatic transport can also cause de-blending.

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Types of blending operations

Possibilities

Blending can be carried out at various

process stages, by using various
methods, equipment, machines, and
intermediate products. The following
can be distinguished:

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 In addition, a distinction must also be made

between controlled and uncontrolled

blending. In uncontrolled blending, the

components are brought together at random

and without a mixing system (e.g. often in

bale mixing). In controlled blending, the

individual components are supplied to the

machines in an ordered fashion and precisely

metered (e.g. in weighing-hopper feeders).

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The various blending processes often differ
widely from one another with respect to
capital cost, labor-intensiveness, precision
of blending, liability to error, and simplicity.
Each method has advantages and
disadvantages. It is therefore not possible
to put forward patent recipes for the use of
one or another blending principle.

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 Bale mixing

This is carried out at the start of the process for both natural

fibers and man-made fibers, since even man-made fibers exhibit

variations in their characteristics.

From 6 to 60 bales are laid out for simultaneous flock extraction.

With careful use, this enables the yarn characteristics to be kept

almost uniform over several years. Blending conditions are very

favorable if controlled mixing is carried out, i.e. if the bales are

selected and laid out within tolerance limits so that, for all the

bales taken together, the same average values of fiber length,

fineness, and/or strength are always obtained.

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 Since it is followed by many other processing
stages, bale mixing gives a good blend in the
transverse direction (cross section). With
widely differing raw materials (e.g. blends of
natural and man-made fibers), the blend is
often unsatisfactory in the longitudinal
direction owing to uncontrolled extraction of
flocks from the bales and the danger of
subsequent de-blending.

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 Flock blending

This is already substantially finer than mixing of bales

and is becoming steadily more important because of

the use of automatic bale-opening machines (not

always a sufficient number of bales in the mix). Flock

blending takes place in an uncontrolled manner,

inevitably and to a small degree, at each blowroom

machine. It occurs in a controlled manner and to a

greater degree at weighing-hopper feeders and

blending machines.

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 It normally has the same advantages and

disadvantages as bale mixing, but in these systems

both the longitudinal and transverse blends are

mostly satisfactory because of the possibility of

metering. However, the longitudinal blend can be

substantially improved if blending is carried out

immediately before the card, since hardly any

rolling movement, and consequently de-blending,

occurs thereafter. Flock blending is becoming more

important in many countries nowadays.

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 Lap blending

This is hardly used now but was previously used

occasionally, e.g. for blending cotton with man-
made fibers. A doubling scutcher is required in
this case; this has a conveyor lattice in the infeed
on which four to six laps (L) could be laid (Fig. 32),
and jointly rolled-off. The lap-sheets from these
laps passed doubled through a beater position
followed by a pair of cages and a lap-winding
device.
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Lap blending produces very good transverse blends
and also a good longitudinal blend, because
subsequent rolling movements are also excluded
here. In addition, it has the advantage of all
scutcher installations: a high degree of flexibility in
operation with a variety of feed materials.

This flexibility, however, is achieved at the expense

of uneconomic operation and complication, since an
additional processing stage must be included.

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Web blending

Web blending (Fig. 33) has been used for a long time at

the ribbon-lap machine, admittedly not to bring

together different components but rather to provide a

very even lap as feed material for the comber.

Another development was a draw frame which

enabled controlled blending to be achieved by

bringing together components in web form (after

drafting on four drafting arrangements), instead of

doubling in sliver form.

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 This gives a good longitudinal blend and also a
slightly better transverse blend than is obtained
with sliver blending. but with higher costs and more
effort, mainly in maintenance, adjustments etc.

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Sliver blending

For the most part, blending of natural and man-made

fibers

is still carried out in sliver form on the draw frame. This

provides the best blend in the longitudinal direction.

Up to the draw frame, each raw material can be

processed separately on the machines best suited to
it. However, an additional blending passage must be
inserted preceding the two usual draw frame
passages in the cotton-spinning mill.

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 For a 67/33 blend, four slivers of one component
are fed in together with two slivers of the other
component assuming equal sliver hank (Fig. 34).
The main disadvantage, aside from the necessity
of a third draw frame passage, is poor transverse
blending in the product. Since a machine which
performs further blending does not follow the
draw frame, the individual components remain as
adjacent fiber strands in the yarn. This can
produce stripiness in the finished product.

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 Fiber blending

Without any doubt, the most intimate blend is obtained if

individual fibers are brought together. This can be achieved

only on the cotton card (to a small degree), on the woolen

card (sometimes fairly intensively), and in rotor spinning

(over short lengths only).

Controlled, metered blending cannot be carried out on these

machines, but can only make a previously produced blend
more intimate.

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Roving blending

This is not common in short-staple spinning mills. Some use is

still made of the process in wool spinning for producing

fancy yarns. Two rovings of different colors are fed into the

drafting arrangement of the ring spinning machine.

Since the single fibers do not blend in the drafting

arrangement, but the fiber strand is twisted directly after

passing the drafting arrangement, either one or the other

color predominates over short lengths of thread. The yarn is

called jasp yarn. Another application is the production of

SIRO yarns (two-ply replacement).

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Blending procedures

. Stages in the blending operation

Blending is carried out in three stages [17] (Fig. 35):

metering, determination, and precise establishment

of the quantities of the individual components;

mixing, i.e. bringing together the metered quantities;

intermingling, i.e. distributing the components evenly

in the body of fibers.

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 Each stage is as important as the other.
However, difficulties arise primarily in
intermingling and in maintaining the blend
once it has been achieved. The latter is very
difficult with fibers of different surface
structure and varying energy absorbing
capacity on stretching, because de-blending
tends to occur at various processing stages.

I Year M.Sc (TM)-Theory of Spinning 35

 Metering

The following methods are distinguished [17]:

Random mixing, for example, as occurs within blowroom

machines, cards, etc.

Metered but intermittent mixing, for example, as occurs in

weighing-hopper feeders, where the components are fed

intermittently in batches.

Metered and continuous mixing, for example, in the A 81

UNIblend (Rieter), the Flockblender (Trtzschler), and the draw

frame. Formation of batches does not take place in the draw

frame, but the individual components probably remain as

strands throughout the whole product.

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Blending of fiber material is an essential preliminary in the

production of a yarn. Fibers can be blended at various

stages of the process. These possibilities should always be

fully exploited, for example by transverse doubling.

However, the start of the process is one of the most

important stages for blending, since the individual

components are still separately available and therefore

can be metered exactly and without dependence upon

random effects. A well-assembled bale layout and even

(and as far as possible simultaneous) extraction of fibers

from all bales is therefore of the utmost importance.

Simultaneous extraction from of

I Year M.Sc (TM)-Theory allSpinning
bales, which used to 37be
 Accordingly, intensive blending ina suitable
blending machine must be carried out after
separate tuft extraction from individual
bales of the layout. This blending operation
must collect the bunches of fibers arriving
sequentially from individual bales and mix
them thoroughly (see Fig. 6, and description
1.4.4.3. The Rieter B 70 UNImix).

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I Year M.Sc (TM)-Theory of Spinning 39
Creel blending

6.4.1 Basics of drawframe blending

Drawframe blending is used to improve the uniformity of

the blend and this applies no matter whether the slivers

being ingested are similar or are completely different.

Slivers of each single component are blended at the

draw frame; this avoids difficulties in carding fibers of

widely different characteristics. The idea is to combine a

number of slivers as they enter the drawframe and this

very process of doubling blends the fibers.

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 In the first passage of drawing, each ribbon could be of

a specific type of fiber. In this case, we use a deviation

in blend rather than a deviation in linear density for our

calculations. Suppose a spot in one of the slivers has

only 40% of fiber A instead of 50% and the difference in

mass is made up by fiber B. This is 80% of the

expected value for fiber A, which makes the blend ratio

40/60 in the bad spot and 50/ 50 elsewhere. Assume

that the linear density of each input sliver is 4 g/m and

there is normally 2 g/m of both fibers A and B.

I Year M.Sc (TM)-Theory of Spinning 41

At the bad spot the linear densities of fibers A and
B in the one bad sliver are 1.6 and 2.4 g/m. The
theoretical blended eight-sliver totals are now (7
2) + 1.6 and (7 2) + 2.4 g/m giving the
proportions 15.6/16.4. This represents 97.5% of
the perfect value for fiber A instead of 80% in the
bad spot. Thus, not only does the doubling
reduce the error in linear density, it also
improves

the blend evenness.

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 In order to produce a large quantity of uniform blend

of the required component proportions it is

necessary to divide the total batch into smaller

portions and to weigh the components of each small

portion to the required accuracy. It is also necessary

for each component to have a known uniform

moisture content at the time of weighing and each

component mass should allow for the application of

its respective official regain allowance.

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 Blending is best carried out from a maximum number

of bales and early in the sequence of processing so

that maximum benefit can be obtained from the

mixing involved in the subsequent processes.

The tangled mass of fibres should be reduced to a

small uniform tuft size to improve accuracy of blend

proportions; this is particularly important when

diverse components are to be blended as otherwise

component separation might occur subsequently.

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Blending Systems

Blending can take place before or after carding.

Pre-card blending takes advantage of the

opening

power of the card and therefore gives the most

intimate mixing of fibres, which in turn may

improve subsequent drafting. Various blending
systems have been developed for different
fibres

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classified into the following groups according
to the principles involved:

(1) stack blending (also known as pile,

sandwich,

or layer blending),

(2) blending hoppers,

(3) batch blending using bins,

(4) continuous blending, and

(5) sliver blending.

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Stack blending

This is the oldest and simplest method which is still used

where small total quantities are involved. The total
masses of each component required are first weighed and
assembled together before being spread out in horizontal
layers, each about 150 mm thick, over a large floor area,
to build up a deep stack. Oil and other additives may be
applied evenly between some of the layers, the necessary
total mass of each additive having been determined
previously. The stack is manually broken down into
vertical 'slices' before being fed to an opening machine.

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 Blending hoppers

Each of several automatic weighing hoppers

delivers a pre-determined mass of the respective

blend components simultaneously on to a

transverse conveyor which feeds the combined

components to a further opening machine. This

system has been widely used in both cotton and

jute processing, and may form

the feed to a continuous opening unit.

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Batch blending using bins

The total blend is divided into smaller representative

batches of bales from which fibres are fed
simultaneously to opening machine no. 1 (Figure
3.1) before being conveyed pneumatically to a
rotating exit point called a rotary spreader
mounted over the first blending bin (la), which, like
the other bins is preferably circular in plan. When
bin la is full , the delivery of opening machine no.l
is diverted to an alternative first bin (lb).

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 Thin vertical wedge-shaped slices of fibres (like
slices from a circular cake) are then removed
fromthe first full bin la, and fed pneumatically to
a rotary spreader mounted over a second bin
(2a), forming horizontal layers.

Fibres removed in vertical slices from the

alternative second bin 2b are fed pneumatically
to opening machine no.2 at the delivery of which
oil or other additive may be applied to the fibres.

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 Tuft Blending Systems

Blending of tufts is carried out either gravimetrically

(weight blending) or volumetrically (volume blending).

Therefore, with respect to tuft size, it is important to take

into account the density and moisture regain of the fibers.

Tufts are often transported between machines of an

opening line by airflow through ducting, and the uniformity

of the tuft flow depends on the specific volume of the tufts.

This parameter is a function of fiber density, moisture

content, and the degree of openness of the blend

components.

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 There are essentially four methods of
tuft blending that follow the basic
principle outlined in BLENDING,
a. Stack blending

b. Hopper blending

c. Batch blending

d. Continuous blending

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 The first two methods are gravimetric
procedures, and the last is volumetric; method
c is a combination. Continuous blending is the
more advanced technique and is widely used
in short-staple mills, whereas all four systems
can be found in the processing of longer
staples. This is particularly so in woolen mills,
where muchsmaller batches of material are
often processed.

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Irregularities in yarn arising from inadequate
blending and mixing may be classified in three
groups:

(1) Irregularities due to variations in the number of

coloured and white fibres in the corss-section of
the yarn.
(2) Irregularities due to an uneven arrangement of
coloured and white fibres in the yarn
crosssection.

(3) Very long-term irregularities.

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Continuous Blending

Figure 2.22 illustrates a four-stack continuous tuft blender. Tufts

are pneumatically

fed into the top of each of four vertical parallel chutes. The chutes

are filled

successively, and the material is removed simultaneously from

the bottom of all

four stacks and dropped onto a belt conveyor, thereby producing

a sandwich formation.

The blend then may be pneumatically conveyed to a second such

stack blender and /or onto a fine opener/cleaner prior to being

fed for carding. There are various designs of continuous

blending units some with

I Year M.Sc up tooften
(TM)-Theory stacks. Others include 60
Spinning a
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The mixing battery (Fig. 49, 50) This was once the most common type of
mixer and it is still used. The mixing battery represents the conventional
method of mixing at the start of the process: 2 - 5 mixing bale openers
(Fig. 49, 1) operate together; usually one of these openers is a waste
feeder (w). A good blend is obtained because each opener can be
supplied with a plurality of bales (b), and the opened material from all
bale openers fl ows together onto a common conveyor belt (2).
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 If the bale openers are provided with weighing
equipment (weighing hopper feeders), then
blends of different components, e.g. cotton
and man-made fibers, can be formed in a
predetermined and metered manner.

Modern blowroom lines operate with automatic

bale openers instead of mixing batteries, but
special blending machines are required in the
lines, two of which are presented below.

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 The machine (Fig. 51) comprises several (6 - 8) adjacent

chute chambers into which the material is blown from

above. The chutes are fi lled successively and material

is removed from all chutes simultaneously. This gives a

good long-term blend.

Ejection of tufts onto a collecting conveyor is performed

by take-off and beating rollers under the chutes. The

filling height in the chutes is held fairly constant by

sensors. At the end of the machine a simple suction

system or a cleaner can be incorporated.

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The Rieter B 70 UNImix

The machine (Fig. 52, Fig. 53) is made up of three parts: a storage

section, an intermediate chamber and a delivery section. Tufts are fed

pneumatically and simultaneously into eight chutes (Fig. 52, 2)

arranged one behind the other in the storage section. A conveyor belt

feeds the stock through the intermediate chamber to the spiked lattice

(3). The material columns are thus diverted from the vertical into the

horizontal. In addition to a condensing effect, this 90 deflection in the

material flow also produces a shift in the timing and spatial distribution

of the fiber packages from the first to the last chute. This special

construction with a deflection of 90, and thereby different distances

from the individual chutes to the lattice (at chute 1: short distance; at

chute 8: long distance) in turn results in good long-term blending.

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 Thereafter, as in a blending opener, material is

extracted from the intermediate chamber and

subjected to a further opening step between an

inclined spiked lattice (3) and an evener roller (4)

(short-term blending). An optical sensor ensures

that only a small quantity of fiber stock is held in the

mixing chamber in front of the lattice (3). Behind

the spiked lattice there is a take-off roller and a

simple pneumatic suction feed to the next machine.

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 Metering and blending on one machine

The blending machines mentioned above create

random blends. They are excellent machines for
blending one type of material (although with some
varieties), e.g. cotton, or only one color shade.
However, they are insuffi cient when blends of diff
erent materials (e.g. cotton/polyester) or diff erent
colors are required. These blends are produced
mainly on draw frames, but can also be produced
on the blowroom line.

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As with the UNImix, several chutes are
arranged side by

side, but every chute has its own, separate

feed (for the different types of material).
Every chute ends at the bottom with an
independent metering device (Fig. 55).
Each chute therefore drops a precisely
measured quantity of material onto the
collecting conveyer belt, which again
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 Fiber blending

The card scarcely improves long-term

blending, since the time spent by the material
in the machine is too short. However, it
improves transverse blending and fiber-to-fiber
blending because, apart from the OE spinner,
the card is the only machine to process
individual fibers. Intimate fiber-to-fiber mixing
is achieved in the formation of the web.

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THANK YOU VERY MUCH

I Year M.Sc (TM)-Theory of Spinning 73