Title of Invention	" A METALLIC CARD CLOTHING"
Abstract	A METALLIC CARD CLOTHING The invention provides a metallic card clothing for rollers of a carding machine comprises a base portion and a blade portion having teeth with lands. The pitch of the teeth and the width of the lands vary along the length of the blade portion randomly.

Full Text

This invention relates to a metallic card clothing for rollers of a carding machine. In a carding machine, metallic card clothing is wound spirally on to the main cylinder and doffer cylinder in a closely abutting manner. The metallic card clothing acting with flexible card clothing located on the flats of a carding machine facilitates fibre individualization. The card clothing used with the rollers of the carding machine comprises a base portion and a blade portion having teeth. In the metallic card clothing used in. practice till now, the same spacing is provided between the adjacent teeth (pitch) and .the width of the lands are equal. A metallic card clothing of this conventional type is shown in figure 1. A metallic card clothing having a variable pitch which increases continuously and then decreases continuously is also known in the art. A process and apparatus for manufacturing this type of metallic card clothing is disclosed in US Patent No. 6,195,843. While processing synthetic and blend materials in a carding machine the sharp profile of the teeth of the metallic card clothing leads to fibre rupture and inferior parallelisation of fibre. A further drawback of the known card clothing is that due to the continued feeding of the synthetic fibres at the higher production rate, loading of fibre occurs at the tips of the teeth of the metallic card clothing on the main cylinder and these fibres are pressed down on to the area of blade portion of the metallic card clothing. This causes damage to the metallic card clothing apart from fibre rupture. While processing cotton, the sharp profile of the teeth of the metallic card clothing, pulverizes cotton seeds during the carding action and the broken seed panicles mingle with fibre which are not completely extracted by the revolving flat tops. This will result in inferior fabric quality. The object of the present invention is to provide a metallic card clothing, which reduces fibre rupture and fibre loading on clothed rollers of the carding machine. The invention provides a metallic card clothing with the spacing between the adjacent teeth different along the length of the card clothing and the width of the lands of the successive teeth different from each other. By providing an effectively larger width of the lands by randomization of its width, the pulverization of cotton seeds are considerably reduced, resulting in fibre with less of broken seed particles in the end product. Further, such an arrangement of the teeth in a card clothing provides better results during carding operation. Accordingly, the present invention provides a metallic card clothing for rollers of a carding machine comprising a base portion and a blade portion having teeth with lands, characterized in that the spacing between the adjacent teeth (pitch) and the width of the lands vary randomly along the length of the blade portion. The variation in the pitch of the teeth and the width of the lands at any point increases or decreases within the given range along the length of the blade. Normal pitch variation for the product is 1mm to 3mm and the land is 0.05 mm to 2 mm. The length of each cycle may be preferably kept in the range of 30 to 8000 mm. The variation is effected by speeding up or slowing down the material feed with help of electronic speed control. The speed control ensures that there is no periodicity and the starting speed can be anything within the range and thus the pattern is not repeated along the length of the blade. The speed control keeps the trough length the same and base width of the teeth is varied. The variation is repeated and is adjustable from 30 mm to 8000 mm. The invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying ' drawings. Figures 1 and 2 show the metallic card clothing according to the prior art. Figures 3 and 4 show the metallic card clothing having variable pitch with : variable land in sequence. Figures 5 and 6 show the metallic card clothing according to the present invention having variable pitch with variable land in random with equal trough. Figures 7 and 8 show the metallic card clothing according to the present invention having variable pitch with variable land in random with unequal trough. The metallic card clothing comprises a base portion (1) and a blade portion (2) I has the teeth. In the metallic card clothing used in the prior art shown in figures 1 and ; 1, the pitch (P) between adjacent teeth in the blade portion (2) and the width of lands (L) of the teeth are constant. In another embodiment of conventional card clothing, I the pitch of the teeth is varied in sequence as shown in figures 3 and 4. In the metallic card clothing according to the invention shown in figures 5 to 8, the pitch (P1, P2 Pn) of the teeth in the blade portion (2) and the width of the lands (L1, L2... .Ln) vary randomly along the length of the card wire. The thickness (t) of the blade I portion (2) of the card clothing and the thickness (T) of the base portion (1) of the card clothing are kept uniform. Similarly, the height (Hi) of the base portion (1) and ' the total height (H) (fig. 2, 4, 6, 8) of the card clothing are also kept uniform. In a , typical card clothing the width of the land of the teeth varies from 0.05mm to 2mm for ! individual wires. The card clothing of the present invention could be made with equal trough as well as unequal trough. The geometry of the metallic card clothing according to the invention reduces the pulverization of seed bits and fibre during carding. It also reduces fibre loading of clothed rollers while processing fibre and therefore higher production rate are achieved by using it. When the metallic card clothing according to the invention is mounted on the rollers of the carding machine, the wire points per unit are in random manner. This facilitates optimum opening of the fibre and breaks the air vortices caused by the air currents because the random structure do not contribute to the vortex formation. This helps to avoid accumulation of fibre clusters and thus reduces neps. The metallic card clothing according to the invention is preferably made of / carbon steel / alloy steel and hardened. A comparative performance of a card clothing according to the present invention was made with reference to the card clothing used in the prior art and the results are given below : Comparative Performance : Carding cylinder speed: 360 RPM Doffer speed : 22 RPM Flat tops movement : 240 mm/minute Lackerin speed : 840 RPM Viscose material was used in the waste percentage study and quality study with the following specification in both cases : Count 20s, 30s, 40s Hank 0.12 Fibre Birla (Grasim) Denier 1.5 Staple width 44 mm AREA OF STUDY CARD CLOTHING CARD CLOTHING (in prior art) (according to the invention) Production per hour 17 kgs. 17 kgs 21 kgs Doffer speed 22RPM 22RPM 28RPM Lickerein waste + Cylinder waste 0.14% 0.13% 0.13% Flat waste 1.76% 1.70% 1.50% Pneumafil waste 0.40% 0.40% 0.32% Total waste 2.30% 2.23% 1.95% Card U% 3.80% 2.71% 2.78% Yarn U% 10.53% 10.43% 10.50% Thin (-50%) 3.30 3.10 2.80 Thick (+50%) 5.30 53.0 7.20 Neps (+200%) 26.80 3.40 8.80 Total Imperfections/KM 35.40 11.80 18.80 Improvement in quality — 66.60% 46.69% At, 17 kgs production rate, improvement in quality observed is 66.60% and at 21 kgs. Production rate the quality improvement observed is 46.89% compared to card clothing used in prior art. WE CLAIM : 1. A metallic card clothing for rollers of a carding machine comprising a base portion (1) and the blade portion (2) having teeth with lands (L1, L2,... Ln) characterized in that the pitch (P1, P2…Pn) of the teeth and width of the lands (L1, L2,... Ln) vary randomly on the blade portion of the card wire of the card clothing. 2. The metallic card clothing as claimed in claim 1, wherein the variation in the pitch (Pn) of the teeth and the width of the land (Ln) changes along the length of blade, the variation increases or decreases along the length of blade portion and the cycle is repeated along the total length of the blade portion. 3. A metallic card clothing as claimed in claim 2, wherein the ratio variation of the pitch (Pn) and width of the land (Ln) are in the range of 0.2 per cent to 2 per cent of the normal pitch value which vary from 1 mm to 3 mm and 0.2 percent to 2 percent of the land value which changes from 0.05 mm to 0.2, and the repetition of the randomness can be adjusted to 30 mm to 8000mm. 4. A metallic card clothing as claimed in claims 1, 2 and 3 is fabricated with the help of mechanical or electronic speed control of the material feed. 5. A metallic card clothing substantially as hereinabove described and illustrated with reference to figures 5 to 8 of the accompanying drawings.

Documents:

75-MAS-2000 ABSTRACT.pdf

75-MAS-2000 CLAIMS (GRANTED).pdf

75-MAS-2000 DESCRIPTION (COMPLETE) GRANTED.pdf

75-MAS-2000 DRAWINGS.pdf

75-mas-2000 abstract.pdf

75-mas-2000 claims.pdf

75-mas-2000 correspondence po.pdf

75-mas-2000 correspondence others.pdf

75-mas-2000 description(complete).pdf

75-mas-2000 form-1.pdf

75-mas-2000 form-13.pdf

75-mas-2000 form-19.pdf

75-mas-2000 form-26.pdf

75-mas-2000 form-3.pdf

75-mas-2000 form-4.pdf