An investigation on yarn engineering using artificial neural networks

Abstract

Engineering of spun yarns having specific tensile, evenness and hairiness characteristics is a long-cherished dream of spinning technologists. Selection of suitable raw materials at minimum cost and optimisation of process parameters are the two major tasks to be achieved to manufacture engineered yarn. Advent of high-speed fibre-testing machines and development of powerful modelling tools such as artificial neural network (ANN) have provided a great impetus in the yarn engineering research. This article demonstrates the feasibility of yarn engineering by developing a yarn-to-fibre ‘reverse’ model, using ANN. This approach is entirely different from the prevailing forward models, which predict the properties of final yarn using the fibre properties as inputs. The cost minimisation of cotton fibre mix was ensured by using the classical linear programming approach in combination with ANN. The engineered yarns demonstrated good agreement with the target yarn properties.