KINDS OF FIBRES

The textile industry uses many different kinds of fibers were known and used in the earlier years of civilization,as well as in modern times.Other fibers have acquired varied degrees of important in recent years.The factor influencing the development and utilization of all these fibers include their ability to be spun,their availability in sufficient quantity,the cost of economy production,and the desirability of their properties to consumers.

As a result of the development of new fibers,difficulties arose in the textile industry in terms of momenclature,classification,and identification.The confusion was compounded by the trends of manufacturers to identify each of their fibers with a different trademark.Consumer became confused by these names and found it difficult and sometimes impossible to identify the fiber content of the products they saw in the stores.Often they did not know whether an identifying name represented a particular kind of fiber or a trademark for some kind of newly created fiber.Subsquently,the United States congress enacted the textile Fiber Products Identification Act,which became effective on March 3,1960.This act requires that the lebels of all textile products must show the fiber contents for amounts above 5 percent,both by fiber name and generic ( or family) name,and that all fibers must be listed in descending order of their predominence, with amount of each fiber indicated in percent by weight of the total fiber content.( The lebel must also indicate the name or registered number of the person or company marketing or the retailing the product and, If the product is imported,the name of the country where it was manufactured.) To standerdize this identification procedure,the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) assigned generic group of manufactured fibers according to chemical composition.

This arrangement has brought about some standerdization,clarification, and easier identification of fibers.For the reader's further convenience,the natural and the manufactured,or manmade,fibers are identified in Table 1-1 by classifying them according to type, name and source or composition. A general description of each type is provided below.For illustrations of these fibers,the reader is referred to the identifying microphotographs in chapter 33.

Natural fibers that occure in nature can be classified as vegetable,animals, and mineral.Vegetable fibers,found in the cell walls of plants,are cellolose in composition.Animals fibers, produced by animals or insects,are protein in composition.The mineral fiber,asbestos,is mined from certain types of rock.

Manmade fibers are derived from various sources.For instance,the natural material of cellolose has been taken from cotton linters and wood pulp,processed chemically,and change in form and several other characterstics into fibers of vartions lengths.These are classified as manmade cellulosic fibers.

Noncellulogic polymer fibers are another group of man made fibers.These synthetics have been and are still being created by research chemists as companies strive to imited properties of other fibers, to develop other characterstics, or to combine certain properties. These fibers are synthesized by combining carbon,oxygen,hydrogen, and other simple chemical elements into large,complex molecular combinations or structures called polymers. Chemists, in fact,discover new chemical compositions and invent new substances that they form into fibers having certain desired characteristies.

The protein from such products as corn and milk has been processed chemically converted into manmade protein fibers. However,they have not been commercially successful.

Manmade fibers created from other sources are mineral fibers,metalic fibers,and rubber fibers.Mineral fibers,such as glass fibers are produced by combining silica sand,limestone and certain other minerals.Metalic fibers are produced by mining and refining such such metal as aluminnium,silver,and gold.Rubber fibers are made from the sap lapped from the rubber tree.