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, different #Fabric, fabric types, etc. At f ...

fiber Fiber or fibre (from la, fibra, links=no) 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 incorporate ...

of discrete length. The opposite is a filament fiber, which comes in continuous lengths. Staple length is a characteristic fiber length of a

sample Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of ...

of staple fibers. It is an essential criterion in yarn

spinning Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally ...

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 fi ...

cotton Cotton 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 cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

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

Gossypium barbadense ''Gossypium barbadense'' (''gos-SIP-pee-um bar-ba-DEN-see'') is one of several species of cotton. It is in the mallow family. It has been cultivated since antiquity, but has been especially prized since a form with particularly long fibers was ...

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

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

and

synthetic Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to: Science * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic ...

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 In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the ...

either from the obsolete noun ''stapler'' meaning '' wool-stapler'', a merchant trading in wool who would sort and class the wool according to quality, or else from the obsolete verb ''staple'', to receive goods such as wool at a

staple port The staple right, also translated stacking right or storage right, both from the Dutch ''stapelrecht'', was a medieval right accorded to certain ports, the staple ports. It required merchant barges or ships to unload their goods at the port and to ...

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 fibrograph 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 fi ...

(such as

wool Wool is the textile fibre 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 properties similar to animal wool. ...

) 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 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 1⅜ inches (34.9mm) or longer, and long-staple as 1⅛ to 1 5/16 inches (28.6 to 33.3 mm). 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 the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...

categorizes the staple length of cotton fibers for convenient cotton classing as follows:

Wool

In wool, fineness is the major criterion. Wool

classification Classification is a process related to categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Classification is the grouping of related facts into classes. It may also refer to: Business, organizat ...

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 woollen materials. Worsted fabrics are smoother and more expensive.

Filament fiber

Synthetic fibers are produced artificially by humans through

chemical synthesis As a topic of chemistry, chemical synthesis (or 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 mod ...

. 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 f ...

. These fibers are formed with extruding fiber-forming materials through spinnerets. The product is continuous strands. These are called filament yarns. Examples of synthetic fibers are

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group 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 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 th ...

, and

acrylic Acrylic may refer to: Chemicals and materials * Acrylic acid, the simplest acrylic compound * Acrylate polymer, a group of polymers (plastics) noted for transparency and elasticity * Acrylic resin, a group of related thermoplastic or thermosett ...

Silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from th ...

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 yarn and covers the core yarn, and are primarily used in denim types. Plying two or more core-spun yarns is used for making core-spun threads.

References

External links

ASTM Standard
Fibers {{textile-stub