A staple fiber is a

textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

fiber Fiber (spelled fibre in British English; from ) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often inco ...

of discrete length. The opposite is a filament fiber, which comes in continuous lengths. Staple length is a characteristic fiber length of a sample of staple fibers. It is an essential criterion in

yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. '' Thread'' is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern ...

spinning Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

, and aids in cohesion and twisting. Compared to synthetic fibers, natural fibers tend to have different and shorter lengths. The quality of

natural fibers Natural fibers or natural fibres (see spelling differences) are fibers that are produced by geological processes, or from the bodies of plants or animals. They can be used as a component of composite materials, where the orientation of fibers ...

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

is categorized into staple length such as short, medium, long staple, and extra-long. ''

Gossypium barbadense ''Gossypium barbadense'' is one of several species of cotton. It is in the Malvaceae, mallow family. It has been cultivated since antiquity, but has been especially prized since a form with particularly long fibers was developed in the 19th cent ...

'', one of several cotton species, produces extra-long staple fibers. The staple fibers may be obtained from

natural Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part ...

and

synthetic Synthetic may refer to: Science * Synthetic biology * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic elements, chemical elements that are not naturally found on Earth and therefore have to be created in ...

sources. In the case of synthetics and blends, the filament yarns are cut to a predetermined length (staple length).''The filament is <1 mm in maximum cross section (i.e., diameter, in most cases). A filament can be compared ... Manufactured fibers are produced either as continuous infinite length filaments or cut staple of desired length value.''
Engineering Cotton Yarns with Artificial Neural Networking (ANN)books.google.co.in › booksTasnim N. Shaikh, Sweety A. Agrawal · 2017
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Etymology

The word ''staple'', used about a fiber of wool, is attested from the 15th century; the use was later broadened to include other fibers such as cotton. The origin of the word is not known for certain. It may be a

back-formation Back-formation is the process or result of creating a neologism, new word via Morphology (linguistics), morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes ...

either from the obsolete noun ''stapler'' meaning '' wool-stapler'', a merchant trading in wool who would sort and class the wool according to

quality Quality may refer to: Concepts *Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something *Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property *Quality (physics), in response theory *Energy quality, used in various science discipli ...

, or else from the obsolete verb ''staple'', to receive goods such as wool at a staple port.

History

For cotton and wool, staple length was originally tested by hand, the tester removing a clump of fiber and then arranging it on a dark cloth for measurement. In the 1970s, machines were invented to do this task, taking around 5 minutes for cotton and for wool around 20 minutes. Today, machines such as Optical scanning methods like digital fibro graph and HVI are used to measure fiber length; they can measure the staple length efficiently.

Staple length

Staple length, a property of staple fiber, is a term referring to the average length of a group of fibers of any composition. Staple length depends on the origin of the fibers.

Natural fibers Natural fibers or natural fibres (see spelling differences) are fibers that are produced by geological processes, or from the bodies of plants or animals. They can be used as a component of composite materials, where the orientation of fibers ...

(such as

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

) have a range of lengths in each sample, so the staple length is an average. For

synthetic fibers Synthetic fibers or synthetic fibres (in British English; see spelling differences) are fibers made by humans through chemical synthesis, as opposed to natural fibers that are directly derived from living organisms, such as plants like cotton ...

which have been cut to a certain length, the staple length is the same for every fiber in the group. Staple length is an important criterion for

fiber, as shorter fibers are more difficult to spin than longer ones, so staple length varies from short to longer length fibers, short fibers also resulting in more hairy yarns. Long staple fibers or extra-long staple fibers produces soft linens, and superior clothing products. Fine (thin) yarn requires long fibers. Cotton traders use many systems to

classify Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...

the quality of cotton fiber. One of the most significant distinctions is "staple length", length of the individual fibers. Traditionally, cultivars of ''Gossypium barbadense'' fall into the "long-staple" category. The term extra-long staple (ELS) first came into use in 1907. The

International Cotton Advisory Committee The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) is an association of governments of cotton producing, consuming and trading countries which acts as the international commodity body for cotton and cotton textiles. Structure and history Founded ...

, in an attempt to standardize classification, defined extra-long-staple as or longer, and long-staple as . Under this classification scheme, most cultivars of ''G. barbadense'' produce extra-long-staple fibers, but some cultivars qualify as long-staple.

Categorization of staple length

Short staple cotton fibers produce carded yarns that are generally irregular and have protruding hairs, hence a cheap yarn quality. Long-staple fibers contribute to better spinnability and strength, delivering regular yarns of superior quality. The staple length of cotton fibers are divided into 19 lengths with a fixed range. The

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and producti ...

categorizes the staple length of cotton fibers for convenient

cotton classing Cotton classing is the measurement and classification of cotton by its specific physical attributes. This information is attached to individual bales, thus clarifying their value and helping producers market them. For cotton buyers, i.e. the spinn ...

as follows:

Wool

In wool, fineness is the major criterion. Wool

classification Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...

and grading are focused on measuring the wool's diameter in microns; Merino wool is typically in length and is very fine (between 12 and 24 microns). Longer (more than ) and finer wool yarns are used in fine worsted materials, and coarser and short-staple yarns () produce woolen materials. Worsted fabrics are smoother and more expensive.

Filament fiber

Synthetic fibers are produced artificially by humans through

chemical synthesis Chemical synthesis (chemical combination) is the artificial execution of chemical reactions to obtain one or several products. This occurs by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions. In modern laboratory uses ...

. The process includes

polymerization In polymer chemistry, polymerization (American English), or polymerisation (British English), is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form polymer chains or three-dimensional networks. There are many fo ...

. These fibers are formed with

extruding Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile by pushing material through a die of the desired cross-section. Its two main advantages over other manufacturing processes are its ability to create very complex ...

fiber-forming materials through

spinnerets A spinneret is a silk-spinning organ of a spider or the larva of an insect. Some adult insects also have spinnerets, such as those borne on the forelegs of Embioptera. Spinnerets are usually on the underside of a spider's opisthosoma, and ar ...

. The product is continuous strands. These are called filament yarns. Examples of

are

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain one or two ester linkages in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include some natura ...

polyamide A polyamide is a polymer with repeating units linked by amide bonds. Polyamides occur both naturally and artificially. Examples of naturally occurring polyamides are proteins, such as wool and silk. Artificially made polyamides can be made throug ...

, and acrylic.

Silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

is the only natural fiber obtained as a filament. If filament fiber is cut into discrete lengths, it becomes staple fiber.

Core-spun yarn

Like blended fabrics, the staple fibers have an important use in core-spun yarn; they are produced by wrapping various staple fibers around a filament yarn. For instance, in a cotton polyester core-spun yarn, cotton wraps around a polyester filament yarn. Similarly, core-spun cotton spandex is a yarn in which cotton fibers are twisted around a

spandex Spandex, Lycra, or elastane is a synthetic fiber known for its exceptional elasticity. It is a polyether- polyurea copolymer that was invented in 1958 by chemist Joseph Shivers at DuPont. Name The name ''spandex'', which is an anagram of t ...

yarn and covers the core yarn and are primarily used in denim types.

Plying In the textile arts, plying (from the French verb ''plier'', "to fold", from the Latin verb ''plico'', from the ancient Greek verb .) is a process of twisting one or more strings (called strands or plies) of yarn together to create a stronger yarn ...

two or more core-spun yarns are used for making core-spun threads.

References

{{Reflist

External links

ASTM Standard
Fibers