Types of Yarns for Denim: Carded, Combed, and Novelty Yarns
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Types of Yarns for Denim: Carded, Combed, and Novelty Yarns
Types of yarns for Denim
There are different types of yarns based on the spinning methods, uniqueness and number of strands in their cross section. All types are described in this section.
Ring spun yarns: A yarn produced from staple fibers that are spun together by twisting method in ring frame machine is known as ring spun yarn.
There are six different types of ring spun yarn, which are discussed below.
- Carded yarns are produced from staple fibers by having average carding procedure. Due to average carding, these yarns contain contamination and have low strength and rough surface. Commercial brands are more tend to use carded yarn to produce their jeans because these yarns are cost effective and can provide comfortable and casual texture to the denim jeans.
- Super carded yarns are made up of staple fibers by having exceptional carding procedure. Due to exceptional carding, these yarns contain less contamination and have better strength and smoother surface than the carded yarn. But still these yarns are not able to gain much popularity in commercial and premium denim market.
- A type of yarn in which combing process is partially done is called semi-combed yarn. In this yarn contaminations are partially removed but have better strength and even surface. Both premium & commercial denim brands use this yarn according to the requirement of the final denim product.
- Fully combed yarns are manufactured from staple fibers, by having impeccable combing procedure. Maximum impurities are removed from the yarn. These yarns show outstanding strength and smoother surface with lesser hairiness. These yarns give soft touch and lustrous effect. Combed yarns are used for the development of premium denim products because of the mentioned properties and qualities.
- Super combed yarns are produced from staple fibers, by having exceptional combing procedure. All the impurities are completely eliminated from the yarn. These yarns are usually chosen by premium denim brands to provide best strength, maximum evenness and smoother surface to their jeans.
Open end yarn: This yarn produced from rotor machine and directly spun from carded sliver. Open-end yarn is more economical than ring spun yarn because many spinning processes are omitted in this yarn processing technique. Yarn produce from this method have more contamination, irregularities, less strength, rough surface, poor luster and rough hand feel.
Core Spun yarn : In core yarn, the core filament is wrapped around by staple fibers. Production of core yarn is done in a single operation. Spinning machine feed staple fibers and core filament simultaneously.
Core spun yarns have different type of elastic filaments into the its core. These yarns can be classified according to the raw material used in the core part into hard- and softcore yarns. Some of the commonly used stretchable core materials are spandex, creora and lycra-400.
- Spandex: It is a man-made polymer filament also known as elastane. Chemically, this filament is made when the short di-isocyanate are combined with the long chain polygycol. It contains at least 85% of polyurethane. This yarn can be stretched to 500 times of its original length. This yarn can be used for both premium & commercial jeans development.
- Creora: It is the most sustainable elastane filament also known as Hyosung’s spandex. Some denim innovators and sustainability concern manufacturers had given attention towards this yarn because it is made from 100% recycled waste. It shows great lasting recovery and have extreme stretch ability. Similar to spandex, creora yarn is also used for both premium & commercial jeans formation.
- Lycra T400: A (EME) elastomultiester polyester fiber. It is ranked in between textured and lycra yarn. It gets coils on its structure when came in contact with heat, due to coils in its physical structure it provides low to medium stretch ability and lasting recovery. Lycra T400 is preferred to use in premium jeans collection.
Novelty yarn: These yarns have vast range of yarns and made with unique effects like thick places are calculatedly introduce to make a burl yarn surface, Uneven yarns are allowed to have their irregularities on the yarn surface to produce an uneven characteristic on finished fabric. Novelty yarns are usually used in the formation of premium jeans because these jeans are more likely to have uniqueness and textures on their surface. Commercial jeans brands do not use these yarns because it will increase the manufacturing cost. Slub yarn is also a kind of novelty yarn that have thick places of fixed thickness at consistent interval of distance. Due to thick places in yarn, it is recognized as slub yarn. This yarn could be single ply yarn or multiple ply yarn.
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