Textile processes such as spinning, twisting, and unwinding involve the rotation of yarns at high speed. To an inertial observer, the rotating string blurs to produce a balloon or surface of revolution formed by the rotating yarn. Relative to a frame that rotates with the string, a steady balloon is stationary. For the heavy yarns with negligible air drag studied in this research, the steady yarn displacement resembles a planar catenary relative to the rotating frame. The dynamic response of the balloon to varying rotation speed, boundary excitation, and disturbances governs the quality of the textile product. In unwinding , for example, the yarn rotates around a stationary package as it is axially withdrawn. The back and forth boundary motion of the yarn on the package causes varying balloon rotation speed, introducing both axial and transverse disturbances. Resonance can cause large tension variations that reduce product quality and may cause yarn breakage. 

Collaborators

Bhuvenesh Goswami, Textiles, Clemson University 

Barrie Fraser, Applied Mathematics, Sydney University

Publications

Zhu, F., Sharma, R., and Rahn, C. D., “Vibrations of Ballooning Elastic Strings,” ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 676-683, September 1997.

Zhu, F., Hall, K., and Rahn, C. D., “Steady State Response and Stability of Ballooning Strings in Air,” International Journal of Nonlinear Mechanics, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 33-46, 1998.

Clark, J., Fraser, W., Sharma, R., Rahn, C., “The dynamic response of a ballooning yarn: theory and experiment,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A – Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 454, Issue 1978, pp. 2767-2789, October 1998.

Sharma, R., and Rahn, C., “An Experimental Study of Ballooning Yarn with a Control Ring,” Journal of the Textile Institute, Part 1: Fibre Science and Textile Technology, Vol. 89, pp. 621-634, 1998.

Kong, X., Rahn C., and Goswami, B., “Steady State Unwinding of Yarn from Cylindrical Packages,” Textile Research Journal, Vol. 69, No. 4, pp. 292-306, March 1999.

Wu, R., Yu, J., Rahn, C., and Goswami, B., “Measurement of Yarn/Package Friction During Over-end Unwinding,” Textile Research Journal, Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 321-327, April 2000.

Sponsor

National Textile Center

For further information:  cdrahn@psu.edu. 

Copyright © 2001 Mechatronics Research Laboratory