FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention is concerned about a card flat for a carding machine. One of main component in the process of carding is card flat and its pattern of arranging the Wires of flats which contributes a significant role in carding functions. Particularly, the invention relates to direction of flat wires of card flat. More particularly, the invention relates improved flats with wires for a carding machine. BACKGROUND OF INVENTION

Spinning process of yarn involves cleaning and removing of impurities present in the fibre, aligning i.e. parallelizing of fibres and men spinning of fibre strands in a yarn. The cleaning and aligning of fibres are mainly done on the first two process machineries Le. Blow room and carding machines. Carding process involves extensive cleaning of impurities in the fibre mixing and separation of fibres to individual level. To facilitate separation of fibres to almost individual level in the carding machine main carding action takes place between the roller called carding cylinder which is clothed with wire teeth of various size and shapes according to requirements and flats clothed with either with wire or saw teeth. These rollers and bars also work at a very close proximity arid with different surface speed. A carding machine is illustrated in the drawing. The main working roller and bars are mentioned in the figure 1. There is an enlarged view of the revolving flat is shown in drawing. The carding machine mainly has three rollers known as Licker in 1, Main Cylinder 2, Doffer shown in drawing. There are a number of bars known as flat bars which are mounted on the main cylinder and travel on an endless path around a portion of the main cylinder. All the three rollers are mounted with saw tooth wire with closely packed coils, so that the wire teeth extend radially on its surface. The flat bars are clothed with Flat top shown in the drawing on enlarged scale and known as "revolving flat". The flat tops comprise of a flexible foundation on which wire staples of different type of cross section i.e. elliptical, ovoid or flat are pressed in. The end of the wire projecting from flexible foundation is bent in the intended direction so that it is opposite to that on main cylinder of motion of the revolving flats. The tip of the wire is ground on the top as well as sides to create a sharp wire points. These flat tops are mounted on the flat bars known as "bare flats". The revolving flats covered with fine wire points of flat tops. The relative direction of wire points on different components particularly rollers are provided on the basis of the action between two set of wire points. As shown in Fig 1 the direction of wire points in licker in and Cylinder are same. Hence it performs stripping action. The wire points in Main Cylinder and flat tops are opposite. Hence it performs carding action. For perform ihg a good carding action ft is preferred the cylinder should rotate at high speed i .e. with a high surface speed while the revolving flats move at a lower surface speed.

While material is fed in a carding machine, first the licker in roller takes small tufts of fibres from the feed rollers. These small tufts of fibres gets transferred to main cylinder clothed with finer wire points by stripping action. Hence the fibre tuft gets distributed on a higher number of wire points to facilitate intensive carding action between main cylinder and flat tops wire points. The transfer of fibre from Licker in to cylinder depends on various factors e.g. the angle of wire points, relative surface speed of the two components and most importantly the gap/gauge between the two clothed surfaces. The evenness of the gap between cylinder and licker in 6, between cylinder and flat tops 5 and between cylinder and doffer 7 are Very crucial and important to achieve good and consistent performance from a carding machine. Moreover the direction of wire points of flat tops is also very important as the main carding action takes place between card cylinder and fiat tops. It is well known in the textile industry that card is the heart of the spinning the yarn. High production in carding to economize the process leads to reduction in yarn quality. The purposes of carding are to open the fiber flocks into individual fibers, cleaning or elimination of impurities, reduction of neps (Entangled Fibres) elimination of dust Elimination of short fibers fiber blending fiber orientation or alignment Sliver formation. Therefore it is very much important that cloth of both carding roller and flat tops. In the existing system all the 80 to 110 flats are provided with clothing which is unidirectional. Due to such arrangement of fiat top clothing the carding action is not satisfactory. This is one of main drawback of carding action. In improved system the wires of flats are not unidirectional.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

One of main objects of this invention is to remove above mentioned drawbacks. Further object is to change the direction the wires of flat clothing as required so that even carding is carried out.

Further object is to placement of flat tops alternately with changing direction of clothing of fiat tops

Another object is uniformly maintaining carding action

Another object is to produce more uniform sliver These and other advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the present invention. It is not intended to identify the key/critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concept of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to a more detailed description of the invention presented later.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a carding machine comprising:

(a) a main carding cylinder having a cylinder axis and carrying a cylinder clothing on a circumferential surface thereof; said cylinder clothing having clothingpoints;

(b) traveling flats cooperating with said main carding cylinder along a circumferential length portion thereof; said traveling flats including

(1) a plurality of flat bars each having a flat bar clothing cooperating with said cylinder clothing; said flat bar doming having clothing points; and

(2) drive means for moving said flat bars in unison in an endless path having a working leg in which said flat bar clothings cooperate with said cylinder clothing and a return leg; said working leg extending circumferentially about a portion of said main carding cylinder;

Wherein said plurality of flat bars each having different direction of heiix of clothing being placed alternatively to deflect the fibres from one direction to another direction

Other aspects, advantages, and salient features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses exemplary embodiments of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION

In an in-depth analysis of all operating elements of carding elements regarding the influence on performance of carding has been carried out. It is found that the "CYLINDER-FLATS" area is by far the most effective region of the carding machine for carrying out the following actions

1. To open the fiber flacks into individual fibers

2. Cleaning or elimination of impurities

3. Reduction of neps ( Entangled Fibres)

4. Elimination of dust 5. Elimination of short fibers

6. Fiber blending

7. Fiber orientation or alignment

8. Sliver formation ( carding machine output material ) According to the Carding theory, 75% of all neps is possible to disentangle, and of these about 60% are in fact disentangled. Of the remaining 40% disintegrate neps 30-33% pass on with the sliver, 5-6% are removed with the fiat strips and remaining 2-4%are eliminated with the waste

The principal work of the carding machine is to separate individual fiber which is carried out between the main cylinder and the fiats. Only by means of this fiber separation, it is possible to eliminate the fine dirt particles and dust. The improved pattern of wiring of fiat tops is in the direction is from left to right direction Conventional system :

Each carding Machine will have 80-110 Numbers of revolving Fiat Tops according to the construction of the carding machine The wire points in the flattops are planted in a manner to create a canal like flow path so that the individualized fibres will follow that path. Normally any material flow will try to take the easiest path to flow easily.

When wire points are only in one direction, the fibre will flow always in one direction -for example right helix direction, the carding action is restricted to unidirectional fibre flow. Therefore fibre is passed in the gap and will not be further carded effectively. More over in the conventional arrangements the fibres remain in to one direction within the action of few no of tops. Further tops will be in idle state; Fibres in Unidirectional flow is shown in fig 2. So fibres will not be carded effectively. Proposed system

in this new construction the Canal path is diverted to opposite direction - say left helix in the next top coming into action by re arranging the pins in this second top. The fibre flow is disturbed/ twisted and facilitates further combing. It is expected that fibre bunch will get loosened and split into many paths. Again the third top will be coming into action to divert fibre flow with right helix direction. This diversion will continuously happen during carding process.in such a manner that fibres are deflected from one direction to another direction during carding. The fibres are deflected from at least one flat to next flat due to change in helix pattern of clothing.

The direction of fibres is changed from a plurality of flats tops to plurality of flat tops with different helix preferably two flats with one direction of helix are placed after two flats with different direction of helix on the fiat tops so that flow of fibres is changed after each two flats

The helix angle of wires clothing is varied between 0 degree and 89 degees helix provided in flat clothing either with saw teethed flat tops or with flat wires.

In the new arrangement there will be a strain on fibre in each and every top during they are in contact with saw tooth of carding cylinder. Fibres in two direction flow is shown in fig 3. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWING

The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which: Fig 1 shows the schematic side view of the carding machine shown with the detailed components

Fig 2 shows the plan view of conventional unidirectional pattern of flattops

Fig 3 shows the plan view of proposed improved alternatively arranged flats with two directional flattops

Fig 4 shows the detailed arrangement of flat in combination with carding cylinder Fig S shows the flat tops with right helix direction

Fig 6 shows the flat tops with right helix. Persons skilled in the art wiil appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and may have not been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figure may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. Throughout the drawings, it should be noted that like reference numbers are used to depict the same or similar elements, features, and structures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFFERED EMBODIMENT WITH DRAWING

The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of exemplary embodiments of the invention as defined by their equivalents. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary.

Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions are omitted for clarity and conciseness.

The terms and words used in the following description are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the invention. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of exemplary embodiments of the present invention are provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the invention as defined by their equivalents.

It is to be understood that the singular forms "a", "ah", and "the" include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

By the term "substantially" if used in the present document it is meant mat the recited characteristic, parameter, or value need not be achieved exactly, but that deviations or variations, including for example, tolerances, measurement error, measurement accuracy limitations and other factors known to those of skill in the art, may occur in amounts that do not preclude the effect the characteristic was intended to provide. Features that are described and/or illustrated with respect to one embodiment may be used in the same way or in a similar way in one or more other embodiments and/or in combination with or instead of the features of the other embodiments. tt should be emphasized that the term "comprises/comprising" when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or component but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof,

Detailed components of the carding machine are shown in fig 1. Carding process involves extensive cleaning of impurities in the fibre mixing and separation of fibres to individual level. To facilitate separation of fibres to almost individual level the rollers and bars in the carding machine are clothed with clothing which comprises of wire teeth of various size and shapes according to requirements. These rollers and bars also work at a very close proximity and with different surface speed. A schematic side view of carding machine is illustrated in Fig 1. The main working roller and bars are shown in the figure 5. There is an enlarged view of the revolving flat in fig 5. The carding machine mainly has three rollers known as Licker in 1, Main Cylinder 2, Doffer 4 shown in fig 1. There are a number of bars known as flat bars 5 which are mounted on the main cylinder and travel on an endless path around a portion of the main cylinder. All the three rollers are mounted with saw tooth wire with closely packed coils, so that the wire teeth extend radially on its surface. The ilat bars are clothed with flexible wires made of steel 3 shown in fig 5 on enlarged scale and known as "revolving fiat". The fiat tops comprises of a flexible foundation on which wire staples of different type of cross section i.e. elliptical, ovoid or flat are pressed in. The end of the wire projecting from flexible foundation is bent in the intended direction so that it is opposite to that on main cylinder of motion of the revolving flats. The tip of the wire is ground on the top as well as sides to create a sharp wire points. These flat tops are mounted on the flat bars known as "bare flats". The revolving flats covered with fine wire points of flat tops. It is also possible that the Fiat bar is clipped with metallic top i.e. saw tooth wire instead of flexible wire. The relative direction of wire points on different components particularly rollers are provided on the basis of the action between two set of wire points. As shown in Fig 1 the direction of wire points in licker in and Cylinder are same. Hence it performs stripping action. The wire points in Main Cylinder and flat tops are opposite. Hence it performs carding action. For performing a good carding action it is preferred the cylinder should rotate at high speed i.e. with a high surface speed while the revolving flats move at a lower surface speed. While material is fed in a carding machine, first the licker in roller takes small tufts of fibres from the feed rollers. These small tufts of fibres gets transferred to main cylinder clothed with finer wire points by stripping action. Hence the fibre tuft gets distributed on a higher number of wire points to facilitate intensive carding action between main cylinder and flat tops wire points. The transfer of fibre from Licker in to cylinder depends on various factors e.g. the angle of wire points, relative surface speed of the two components and most importantly the gap/gauge between the two clothed surfaces. The evenness of the gap between cylinder and licker in, between cylinder and fiat tops 5 and between cylinder and doffer 7 are very crucial and important to achieve good and consistent performance from a carding machine.

Conventional flat arrangement is shown in fig 2 where aLl the flats are provided with fiat wire tooth in same direction. Due to such arrangement fibres carded between cylinder and flats are passed straight without any diversion so as to create strain on the fibre bunch to provide further chance for carding.

Improved flats construction has been shown in fig 3 where flats with different directions of tooth are placed alternately as a result of which fibres are deflected from one direction to other direction due to which fibres are strained for better carding and same is shown in fig 3

Detailed of flat wires and saw tooth of cylinder has been shown in fig 4. It shows carding action between the flat and main cylinder where revolving flats is clothed with wire and cylinder is clothed with saw tooth. The flats rotate in anti clockwise and said cylinder rotates in clockwise

Complete unit of a flat is shown in fig 5. About 80 to 120 such flats are assembled in a chain and rotate over the cylinder so that wires of both is set in close proximity

Advantages :

Enhanced fibre separation action between cylinder to flattops Can be attained.

Reduction of entangled fibers ( Neps ) in the carding machine sliver .( Output material of carding machine)