Comber

Definition: Combing is a process by which the number of short fibers and remnant fragments of
impurities present in a carded or drawn sliver is minimized to give a clean sliver, having more of
a rectangular staple diagram, with the vast majority of the constituent fibers in a straightened and
parallel state.
Combing, therefore, makes possible the spinning of yarns of fine counts with low irregularities
and a cleaner appearance.
Objects of combing:
1. To remove short fibers below a pre-elected length so that the spinner enables to produce of
finer / better yarn.
2. To remove reps and foreign matter from the sliver.
3. With the help of drawing and doubling, the combed sliver is uniform, and the fibers are
straight and parallel.

Contribution of combing to yarn quality/ Influence of combing on yarn quality

1. Longer fibers are finer than short fibers. After combing higher counts is possible to keep a
minimum no of fiber in yarn dia.
2. Long fiber yarn has less hairiness and more luster.
3. Combing is necessary for better yarn appearance and regularity.
4. Less twist for finer yarn but more twist required in presence of short fiber.
5. Better twist distribution improves the strength of the yarn.
6. Improve uniformity,
7. Produce short trash-free clear yarn.
8. Improve efficiency in the next process.
9. Increase yarn strength.

Types of comber:
● Rectilinear comber
 ● Rotary comber
● Circular comber
● Hackling comber
Preparation of feed stock for combing:

● A good parallel disposition of fibres is required to avoid loss of good fibres. If

fibres lie across the strand Fig.5, even long fibres (a) are presented to the circular
combs as if they are short fibres (shown at b) and they are eliminated as such. This
represents unnecessary loss of good fibres.
● Appropriate preparatory machines are needed to prepare the material so that it
meets requirements. The fibre arrangement must also taken into account i.e in this
case the disposition of hooks. There is over 50% of fibres in card sliver have trailing
hooks. If the comber is to straighten hooks, as it is intended to, then the fibres must
be presented to it with leading hooks.

Hook Fiber:
The undesirable bending of the fibre ends produces fibre hook. It is the disadvantages of web
formation at the card.
According to an investigation by Morton & Yen in Manchester, the fibres in the web:
● More then 50% have trailing hook
● About 15% have leading hook
 ● About 15% have double hook
● And less than 20% of the fibre have no hook.
Hook fibres effectively convert longer fibre to short fibres and these cannot be permitted in the
yarn. They must therefore be removed before yarn formation. This can be done either by drafting
at draw frame or combing at comber.

Removing fibre hooks by comber

From the following figures we can see that the comber machine can straighten only the leading
hooks. The nippers grip the fibres at the tip, and the circular comb straightens out the hooks at the
leading end as it sweeps the fibre fringe. But if the fibre hooks are present as trailing hooks as
figure 3.b. then either the nippers grip the hooked end or may not be gripped at all. The result is
fiber will go to the delivery sliver as a hooked form, or the fiber is treated as short fiber and will
be wasted.
Effect of number of passages between carding and comber
After passing each operation of processing i.e. one machine, the direction of the strand is reversed.
As stated earlier, the comber machine can straighten out the leading hooks only, so to present the
majority of hooks in leading form, there must be an even number of passages between carding and
comber. This is shown in figure 3.a. For an even number of passages two machines are used and
,for normal cases those are pre-comb drawing and super lap former.
Now imposing another drawing frame between carding and comber gives the majority of the hooks
would be presented to comber as trailing direction comber shows inferior performance.

Major Manufacturers of Comber:

● Marzoli Spa, Italy
● Laxmi Machine Works Limited
● Toyoda Textile Machinery, Japan
● Rieter Machine Works Limited, Switzerland
● Zhejiang Huahai Group, China
● Jinwei Textile Machinery, Co. Limited.
Basic working principle of comber machine:
The basic elements of the comber machine are shown in below figure. These are the feeding
element, the nipper plate, the combing system and the detaching rollers.
The feeding element consists of a feed plate and feed roll. The main function of the feeding element
is to feed the comber lap in a series of short lengths. The nipper plate grips the fibers as a means
of holding long fibers while the short fibers, neps, and trash are being removed.
The combing system consists of two combs. The first one is a rotating bottom circular comb that
performs the main combing action. The second one is a linear top comb that completes the function
of the bottom comb through vertical combing movement.
The detaching rolls are two pairs of gripping rolls that rotate forward and backward intermittently
to hold and move the combed web for net forward travel.
Process Flow Chart/ Sequence of combing Cycle :
Topic 1.1.5

Description of process sequence of a comber:

A. Lap feed by feed roller.
B. Lap nipping by the nipper.
C. Combing by the cylinder.
D. Nipper opening and forwarding.
E. Detaching roller backward movement.
F. Piecing.
G. Detaching roller forward movement.
H. Combing by the top comb.
I. Top comb withdrawing.
 J. Cleaning of cylinder comb

(a) Feed rollers (S) move lap sheet (W) forward by a small amount (4.3 – 6.7 mm), while nippers
(Zo/Zu) are held open (feed).
(b) Upper nipper plate Zo is lowered onto cushion plate (Zu) so that the fibers are clamped between
them (nipping).
(c) Combing segment (K), mounted on rotating cylinder (Z), sweeps saw-teeth through fiber fringe
(B) and carries away anything not held by the nippers (rotary combing).
(d) The nippers open again and move toward detaching rollers (A) (nippers forward).
(e) Meanwhile detaching rollers (A) have returned part of the previously drawn-off stock (web V)
by means of a (partial) reverse rotation, so that the web protrudes from the back of the detaching
device (web return).
(f) In the course of the forward movement of the nippers the projecting fiber fringe (B) is placed
on the returned web (V) (piecing).
(g) The detaching rollers begin to rotate in the forward direction again and draw the clamped fibers
out of web (W) held fast by feed rollers (S) (inside the nippers) (detaching).
(h) Before the start of the detaching operation, top comb (F) has thrust its single row of teeth into
the fiber fringe. As the fibers are pulled through the teeth of the top comb during detaching, the
trailing part of the fringe is combed, thus making up for the inability of the circular combs to reach
this part of the fringe (passive combing by the top comb).
(i) As the nipper assembly is retracted, the nippers open for the next feeding step. The top comb is
withdrawn. A new combing cycle begins.
(k) Contrary to the movements of the other parts, the combing cylinder rotates continuously.
During this rotation and at a certain instant, the combing segment is brought into the vicinity of a
rapidly revolving brush mounted below the combing cylinder. This brush removes the
imperfections, etc., from the combing segment, and ejects them into an extractor that carries the
noil away to a collecting filter system.

Comber Waste:
The waste material (short fibers) removed during combing is referred to as noil (or sometimes as
comber waste). Noil consists of shorter fibers and neps. The amount of noil removed in the
combing process may be varied to suit the circumstances and is usually expressed in percentage
based on the original weight of laps fed into the machine. The percentage of noil being calculated
as follows:

Influence of the feed stock on combing

1. Parallelization of the fibres in the batt: Lack of longitudinal orientation longer fibres
eliminate with the noil. Loss of good fibres owing to fibre disorder.
 If the fibres have and excessively high degree of parallelization, the retaining power so
called self-cleaning effect can be severely reduced that it is no longer able to hold back the
neps as it usually does. Some of these neps also pass through the top comb. Neppiness of
the product is increased.
2. Batt thickness (Weight)
The self-cleaning effect of the batt exerts a considerable influence on the combing
operation. This effect arises from the retaining power of the fibres relative to impuriites,
which depends not only on the disorder of the fibres but also on their quantity. A thick batt
always exerts greater retaining power than a thin one. Up to a certain level, the clamping
effect of the nippers is also better with a higher batt volume. Adversely, a thick batt always
exerts a heavy load on the comb and this can lead to uncontrolled combing. In this case
the fibre farthest from the circular comber (upper side of the nipped web) may escape the
combing operation, since the combs are no longer able to pass through the whole of the
layer.
3. The disposition of the hooks: Fibres must be presente to the comber so that leading hooks
predominate in the feedstock. If the batt is fed in the wrong direction, the number of neps
rises. It also increases the soiling and loading of the top combs and circular combs. If wrong
hook feed, long fibre sweeps away as short fibre.

Degree of combing:
Quality classes must be differentiated in combed yarns:
● Semi- combed with noil percentage below 12%
● Normally combed with noil percentage 12-18%
● Highly combed: 18-22%
● Super combed: above 22%.
Combing with more than 22% is rare and generally used where super fine yarns to be spun. With
the increase the noil % short fibre, impurities and cleanliness increased,

Effect of comber setting on noil extraction/The influence of machine components and settings
on combing/ Methods of Improving Noil Percentage:
o The feed distance moved per cycle
 o Types of feed
o The detachment setting
o No. of points on the comb
o Depth of penetration of top comb

1. The feed amount moved per cycle:

This has a noticeable influence on
⮚ Noil percentage
⮚ The quality of the combing operation
⮚ The production rate

A high feed amount increases the production but causes deterioration in quality, especially in the
cleanliness of the web. Feed amount must be lower, the higher quality requirements.

2. Type of feed:
Forward feed used to be chosen for higher production rates when quality requirements not too
rigorous. i.e. (noil % 12-14).
When higher demands were made on quality, backward feed had to be used with noil percentages
in the range (12-25%).

3. The detachment setting:

This refers to the distance between the clamping line of the nippers and the nip line of the detaching
rollers when these parts are at their closest spacing. The detachment setting provides the chief
means for influencing the level of noil elimination.
A wide detachment setting results in a high level of noil elimination; closer setting is associated
with a lower noil level.

● The number of points on the combs:

Needles on the top comb have a flattend cross-section and are formed with a bend. Usually they
are used with a point density in the range of 23-32 needles per cenitimeter.
Fewer needls are used when higher produciton is needed together with lower waste elimination.
Nore needles produce more noil.

● The depth of penetration of the top comb:

Noil extraction can also be influenced by the depth of penetration of the top comb. Lowering of
the top comb by about 0.5 mm is followed by an increase in noil about 2%. The main improvement
due to this procedure has to be seen in the eliminaiton of neps. Optimum setting must be
established, since excessivley deep penetraiton of the top comb disturbs fibre movement during
piecing. The result is deterioraiton in quality.

● Effect of top comb setting: The amount of waste extracted can also be adjusted by
alternating the position of top comb, combing operation will be proper and the noil
extraction will be high. Setting the top comb close to the nippers will reduce the amount of
extracted waste, but this means higher levels of neps, impurities, and short-fibers in output
sliver. Inefficient penetration of the top comb may also result in this.

Index Wheel:

In comber outside the cylinder shaft, a wheel is attached with 40 equal parts names as Index
wheels. There is a pointer on it to indicate the index number. Various motion of comber m/c and
its timing such as nippers, cylinder, top comb, roller and different setting and adjustments are done
by different index number. With the reference of index number, Nipper comb, cylinder and
conjugative position, motion and adjustment limit are selected.
Pointer position 33 to7:
Combing by cylinder comb
Nippers closed and at backward most position
Pointer position 17 to 23:
Delivery and combing by top comb
Nipper open, forward most position
Detaching roller forward rotation
Pointer position at 7 to 17:
Forward feeding (opening)
Pointer position 23 to 33:
Backward feeding (closing)
Pointer Position 13 to 17:
Detaching roller backward rotation

Diagram of Movement:

Diagram of movement is the logical explanation of index wheel in two-dimensional medium

Common Formula used
Production = Feed/Nip * Nip / min * Waste%

1m =1.0936 yds
1 lb=7000 gr
1lb =453.6 gm

Problem 1:
Calculate the production in kg/shift of a comber machine having following particulars:
Lap count = 100 gram/meter
Feed/nip = 5mm
Nips/min = 350
Number of head = 8
Noil extraction =14% and
Efficiency = 90%.
Problem 2:
Calculate production of a comber machine in kg/shift, where -lap weight = 70ktex, feed/nip = 4.7
mm, nips/min = 380, number of head = 8, noil extraction =14% and efficiency = 90%.
Problem 3:
Find out the production/day a comber in tons from the following particulars:
Nips/min : 350
Feed/Nips : 7.5 mm
Head :8
Noil extraction: 18%,
Lap weight : 1200 grains/yd and
Efficiency : 85%.
Problem 4:
A spinning mill is run with 20 comber machine which process cotton fiber upto staple length
1.125 inches. Parameters of each machine are: nips/min =550, feed/nip = 5.8 mm, no. of head
per machine = 8, lap weight = 800 gr/yd, waste extraction = 15%, efficiency = 80% . Find out the
production in kg/shift of those combers?
 Mathematical problem

Production = Feed/Nip * Nip / min * Waste%

1 nip=5mm
350nip=350*5 mm/min
Production = 350*5*60*24*8*.86*0.9/1000m/day
100/1000= 0.1kg/m
1 m weight = 0.1 100/1000kg

350*5*60*24*8*.86*0.90/1000m weight = 350*5*60*24*8*.86*0.90*100/1000*1000kg/day

1. Calculate the production in kg/shift of a comber machine having following particulars:
Lap count = 100 gram/meter
Feed/nip = 5mm
Nips/min = 350
Number of head = 8
Noil extraction =14% and
Efficiency = 90%.
Solution:
 Given data,
Lap count = 100 gram/meter
Feed/nip = 5mm
Nips/min = 350
Number of head = 8
Noil extraction =14%
= (100-14)/100
= 0.86
Efficiency = 90%
= 0.90
Production/shift = ?
Comber production/shift:

= 520.13 kg (Ans)

2. Calculate production of a comber machine in kg/shift, where -lap weight = 70ktex,

feed/nip = 4.7 mm, nips/min = 380, number of head = 8, noil extraction =14% and
efficiency = 90%.
Solution:
Given data,
Lap wt. = 70ktex = (70 x 1000) tex = 70 gm/m
1000m yarn weight 70*1000 gm
1m yarn wt. = 70*1000/1000=70gm/m
Feed/nips = 4.7 mm
Nips/min = 380
No. of head = 8
 Noil extraction= 14% = (100-14)/100 = 0.86
Efficiency = 90% = 0.90
Production/Shift=?
Comber production/shift:

= 371.58 kg (Ans)
3. Find out the production/day a comber in tons from the following particulars:
Nips/min : 350
Feed/Nips : 7.5 mm
Head :8
Noil extraction: 18%,
Lap weight : 1200 grains/yd and
Efficiency : 85%.
Solution:
Given data,
Nips/min : 350
Feed/Nips : 7.5 mm
Head :8
Noil extraction: 18%
: (100-18)/100
: 0. 82
Lap weight : 1200 grains/yd
: 71.10 gm/m
Efficiency : 85% = 0.85
So, Production/day: ?
Comber production/shift:
 = 1648.45 kg (Ans)
4. Calculate the production (in kg/shift) of a comber machine having following particulars-lap count =
100 gram/meter, feed/nip = 5mm, nips/min = 350, number of head = 8, noil extraction =14% and
efficiency = 90%.
5. A spinning mill is run with 20 comber machine which process cotton fiber upto staple
length 1.125 inches. Parameters of each machine are: nips/min =550, feed/nip = 5.8 mm,
no. of head per machine = 8, lap weight = 800 gr/yd, waste extraction = 15%, efficiency
= 80% . Find out the production in kg/shift of those combers?
6. if nip/min= 220, no of head=8, feed/nip =7mm, lap wt =1000 grains/yds, eff% = 90% ,
noil =15%. calculate pro/day/comber=?
solve:
lap wt.=1000/7000lb/yds
100-15
production =nip/min * feed/nip* no of head*feed lap wt*eff * *60*24
100
7*220*8*1000*.90*(100-15)*60*24
= 7000*100*10*2.54*36

7*220*60*24*8*0.90*0.85/10*2.54*36 yds/day
1 yds weight = 1000/7000lb
7*220*60*24*8*0.90*0.85/10*2.54*36 yds weight=
7*220*60*24*8*0.90*0.85*1000/7000*10*2.54*36
= 2120.315 lb/DAY
7. Find out the no of comber m/c to produce 10000 lb/day of 40 count semi combed (50:50)
yarns when nips /min =380; feed nip =8; lap wt= 1000 grain/yds, no of head /frame = 8:
noil% =15; effy =90%
8. Find the no of modern comber that feed by a lap former having the particulars lap
production rate = 5000 lb/yds; lap wt = 1000 grain /yds; nips/min = 400, length feed/ nip
 = 4.8 mm, assumed all the other parameter.
9. find out the production per hour at a combing running particular nips/min=300, feed/nip= 5.4
mm, lap feed= 64 ktex, no of head=8, noil extraction= 16%; effy= 85%
10. Calculate production of a comber machine in kg/shift, where -lap weight = 70ktex, feed/nip = 4.7 mm,
nips/min = 380, number of head = 8, noil extraction =14% and efficiency = 90%.
11. A spinning mill is run with 12 comber machine which process cotton fibre upto staple length
1.375 inches. Parameters of each machine are: nips/min=550, feed/nip =4.5 mm, no. of head per
machine= 8, lap weight = 800 gr/yd, waste extraction= 16% and efficiency = 85%. Find out the
production in kg/shift of those combers?
12. Find Out required DCP to produce 3.4 ktex sliver from 64 ktex comber lap,the comber
m/c particulars are as the following , no the head =8, no of delivery =2; noil extraction =
15%, draft constant=1696
Actual draft =64*8/3.4*2
Mechanical draft = X*.85
DCP= 1696/Y
13. If in a combing machine draft constant is 2780 and DCP is 46, then what will be
the mechanical draft of the machine? If waste is 18%, then what will be the actual
draft?