Protruding fibres on a textile surface called Hairiness, which varies in length, is often not in line with the customers’ expectations, and whenever the fabric is dyed the colour appears hazy and dull. This is due to the fact, that the protruding fibres act as obstructions and thus, the angle of reflection is poor, affecting the fabric’s feel and quality.
Though various solutions and technologies are available in the market for minimising the hairiness from the fabric, however the most popular among all has been from Osthoff Senge. Founded in 1912, the medium-sized company specializes in the construction of singeing machines. With more than 3000 units operational worldwide, out of which India has more than 70 customers like Arvind, Brandix, Vardhaman, Wellspun, etc. their India-business is being handled by A.T.E. Enterprises Private Limited, New Delhi.
[bleft]The Osthoff Senge Hairiness Tester allows an objective measurement of the hairiness of a fabric sample, which in turn lends itself to proper control of the singeing process to reduce the fabric hairiness [/bleft]
The technology for removing hairiness by Osthoff Senge is embedded with double jet burner with gas/air mixtures which removes the protruding short fibres, imparting a clean surface and soft feel to the fabric.
To complement the same, Osthoff has now developed the Osthoff Senge Hairiness Tester. This accessory allows an objective measurement of the hairiness of a fabric sample, which in turn lends itself to proper control of the singeing process to reduce the fabric hairiness.
The testing kit which includes a monochrome CCD camera, sends a necessary PC signal via Gbit Ethernet cable to an industrial PC, located in the main cabinet,which runs an analysis program and determines the bottom limit (fabric surface) and top limit (topmost visual point of hairs) of the fibres. The distance in-between is the length of the hair and for the evaluation of the hairiness the mean value and the standard deviation are calculated. The mean value reflects the grade (how short are the hairs in general), the standard deviation reflects the quality (the consistency of the hair length) of the hairiness. These pre-set hairiness values help in adjusting the intensity of the burners to ensure quality. The same senge parameter can be set for singeing all fabrics in the future at the same level. Oswal Hammerle, Kolhapur and Ruby Mills, Mumbai have already been using the product.
