( . Indian Journal of Fibre & Textile Research Vo l. 28. Dece mber 2003. pp. 399-404 Influence of fibre openness on processibility of cotton and yarn quality: Part I - Effect of blow room parameters S M Ishtiaque & S Chaudhuri Department of Te xtile Tec hnology, Indi an In stitute of Technology. New Delhi 110016 , Indi a a nd A Das" Northern In dia Textile Research Associa ti on, Sector-23, Raj Nagar. Ghaziabad 20 I 002, India Received 3 June 2002; accepted 20 September 2002 The influence of fibre ope nness in the bl ow room on processibility of co tt on and yarn quality has been studied. The change in the settings of beaters at three diff erent stages of blow room changes the ope nness of fibres. It is obse r ve d that the blow room cl eaning efficiency changes with the openness of fibre and the ma nner in which opening takes place is also important. The changes in fibre openn ess at bl ow room do not apprec iably influence the yarn ineg ul arit y. With the increase in openness at blow room the yarn tenacity and total imperfec ti ons improve but at a very hi gh open ness. these parameters deteriorate sharply. The optimum degree of opening is found to be 0.622, whi ch has bee n obt ai ned through, the settings of 7 mm. 6 mm and 6 mm at porcupine, fine kirschner and sc utcher kirschner beater respectively. Keywords: Beater setting, Cotton , Fibre openness, Kirschner beater, Yarn imperfections. Yarn irreg ul arity 1 Introduction The raw material for the manufacture of cotton ya rn comes generally in the form of hi ghly compressed bales of cotton. Each bale consists of a ve ry large number of tightly packed layers of tufts of cotton and each tuft contains hundreds and thousa nd s of fibres. The tufts contain, embedded between the fibres, a large quantity of foreign matter, leaf and seed particles. It is the problem for the spinner to open out th ese tufts of cotton, eliminate trash as far as poss ibl e and prepare an even strand of sliver and roving which can be efficiently subjected to the final drafting operation. The opening and cleaning at blow room, bes ides at card and draw frame, playa vital role in the preparation of a quality sliver which is essential for th e production of good quality yarn. Blow room in ge neral does not get its share of importance in th e industry, particularly with reference to th e ex te nt of fibre opening it can achieve. Its influence on yarn ha s been underestimated. With th e increasing demand on ya rn quality and the ever-increasing deterioration In "To whom a ll the correspondence shou ld be addressed. Present address: Department of Textile Technolo gy. In dian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 11001 6, Indi a. Phone: 2659 14 13; Fax: 0091 -011-2 685 1103; E-mail: apurba_das@hot mail.com/ apurba@textile.i itd.ernel.in qu ality of cotton due to th e presence of hi gh amo unt of trash and other contaminant s, it is necessary to pay attention to the degree of opening to be g iv en to th e cotton to provide the best quality produ ct to th e customer. Hi gh degree of opening of fibres is esse nti al fo r good quality yarn but how does thi s opening occur is also equally impor ta nt. The yarn quality cannot be continuously enhanced with simultaneous increase in degree of opening, since the possible chances of over beating the fibres, and damaging and stress in g th em mu st a lso be avoided. This nece ss it ates th e consideration of both th e positive and negative aspects of degree of opening and hence demands an optimum va lu e of openness of fibres. For th e purpose. it is necessary to measure th e ex te nt of opening ac hi eved and th en to obse rv e th e res pec ti ve characteri stics of ya rn. Vari ous workers '·6 have devised me th ods of mea s- urin g th e openness of fibre a nd defin ed ope nn es s in differe nt ways. However, very little is avai lab le in th e literature to indicate in what way th e ope nn ess of fi- bres in bl ow ro om affects th e ultimate qu ality of yarn and th e processing behavio ur up to spinnin g. In the prese nt work, an attempt has been madc to stu dy th e influence of fibre ope nn ess in bl ow room on yarn