Mechatronic on-line stability tester for air-jet textured yarns

A new mechatronic online yarn stability tester for air-jet texturing is reported. Currently, stability testing takes place by carrying out destructive testing of the yarn off-line in the laboratory. This causes considerable delay between obtaining the results and correcting the production, which can prove to be very costly to the manufacturer. The new stability tester would monitor both the tension between two delivery rollers following the texturing jet and the difference in speeds of the rollers. By continuously measuring the yarn tension and percentage elongation of the yarn, a measure of the stability of the textured yarn structure can be obtained. This would then be used to control the actuator which adjusts the pressure of the air supplied to the texturing jet, thereby closing the control loop