Indian Journal of Fibre & Textile Research Vol. 39, March 2014, pp. 49-54 Comparison of the results of different hairiness testers for cotton-Tencel blended ring, compact and vortex yarns a Musa Kilic b & Aye Okur Department of Textile Engineering, Dokuz Eylül University, 35397 Buca, Izmir, Turkey Received 26 March 2013; revised received and accepted 4 June 2013 Hairiness results of Zweigle G566, Uster Zweigle Hairiness Tester 5 (UZHT5) and Uster Tester 5 S800 (UT5) have been compared for ring, compact and vortex yarns. For this purpose, 100% cotton, cotton-Tencel LF (67:33, 50:50 and 33:67) and 100% Tencel LF yarns have been produced from each spinning system. In general, correlations between the results of Zweigle G566 and UZHT5 devices, working with the same measuring principle, are found statistically significant at 99% confidence level for all spinning systems. However, the correlations between the results of UT5 against Zweigle G566 or UZHT5 are also found statistically significant at 95% confidence level for all spinning systems. But, for vortex yarns, negative correlation coefficients are detected between the results of UT5 against Zweigle G566 or UZHT5 in terms of blend ratio. This situation could be the result of wrapped structure of the vortex yarn and different measuring principles of the hairiness testers. Keywords: Compact yarn, Hairiness, Ring yarn, Tencel yarn, Vortex yarn 1 Introduction In addition to the traditional yarn parameters such as unevenness, imperfections, strength and elongation, the hairiness also plays an important role in evaluation of the yarn quality. Hairiness influences the performance of many processes like weaving, knitting or dyeing as well as the handle, appearance and end use of the final fabric or garment. Because the hairiness is an important parameter for yarn quality, it must be measured accurately and precisely. Measurement of hairiness has been dealt for almost fifty years and many hairiness testers with various measuring methods have been developed 1 . Although many of these measuring systems have become commercial, the results of these systems are not easily comparable, because the results are expressed in different units for almost each different system. In this study, it was aimed to analyze the results of different hairiness testers for the yarns produced by different spinning systems. For this purpose, cotton-Tencel LF blended ring, compact and vortex yarns were used and results were analyzed by correlation analysis. It is seen that many researchers have dealt with the comparison of the results of different hairiness testers. Barella and Manich 2 compared the results of different hairiness testers. They used three different instruments to measure the same yarn series: Digital ITQT hairiness tester, Shirley hairiness meter, and Zweigle G565 instrument. The hairiness parameters compared were the length index (L) for the digital apparatus, the number of hairs protruding more than 3 mm/m (Sh) for the Shirley instrument, and two parameters from the Zweigle G565 apparatus [Pm (hairs protruding more than 1 mm/m ) and S3 (hairs protruding more than 3 mm/m)]. The study showed that there was a reasonable agreement between the results furnished by the three instruments tested. Coll and Marcelo 3 compared the Zweigle G565 and Uster Tester 3 devices. They observed that the spinning parameters studied influence the yam hairiness for all index, but not in a similar way. A high correlation was obtained between the two exploration methods for combed yams and not so good for carded cotton yarns. The formation of fuss depends on the material preparation. Appasamy and Narasimham 4 used statistical methods for comparing the performance of different testers, including ANOVA to divide the total variance into four components namely the count effect, the instrument effect, the interaction, and the inherent natural variation. Tyagi 5 investigated the relationships between the hairiness values of Uster Tester 3 and Zweigle G565 for viscose OE rotor-spun yarns. —————— a Presented at the 1 st International Congress of Innovative Textiles, Istanbul, Turkey, 20-22 October 2011. b Corresponding author. E-mail: musa.kilic@deu.edu.tr