No satisfactory technology has emerged for routine rapid measurement of fiber linear density at commercial speed for the cotton industry. This paper introduces the CottonscanTM instrument, a new technology designed to undertake this task. An inter-laboratory trial of the Cottonscan TM system to ascertain the performance of the technology is described. Overall, the 95% confidence limit for a single measurement was estimated to be ±10.4 mtex. Further, spinning trial results have confirmed that unlike the Micronaire value, average fiber linear density obtained from the CottonscanTM correlate well with measured yarn properties. These data indicate that the CottonscanTM instrument can be usefully employed to determine average fiber linear density, an important fiber quality parameter which can be a useful additional tool for the spinner in predicting yarn properties.
We have previously described Cottonscan TM and its performance in determining the average fiber linear density of cotton lint samples in detail. The previous work was focused on demonstrating that a reliable and sufficiently precise measurement was technically feasible. However, the measurement cycle time was 6 min. Thus the focus has now shifted to reducing the measurement cycle time in order to increase the sample throughput and demonstrate that the instrument is likely to be useful to the industry. Here we describe the engineering improvements made to bring the cycle time down to 1 min and provide results to show that the measurement is unaffected.
A miniature FBG pressure sensor is reported. Two optical fibers containing FBG arrays are twisted together and the sensing elements are enclosed in a specially designed structure to detect variations in the ambient pressure. It provides an overall diameter of ~1 mm which is extremely beneficial for the studies of peristalsis in the gastrointestinal tract and flow in the vascular system. The static and dynamic responses of the miniature catheter were calibrated and the results are presented.
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