Determination of the relationship between fiber characteristics and felting tendency of luxury fibers from various origins

Abstract

When literature is reviewed in detail, it can be seen that there is limited research, especially on Angora rabbit fiber and again in none of the research was the felting propensity of luxury protein fibers from different origins (goat, camelid and rabbit) related with fiber properties, such as cuticle scale frequency and scale height. For this purpose, hair-based luxury fibers, which are most widely used and consumed all over the world (cashmere, mohair, angora, Huacaya alpaca and Suri alpaca) were chosen in order to measure fiber diameter, fiber length, cuticle scale frequency and scale height of these fibers. As a result, detailed relations about the felting propensity of the hair-based luxury fibers with the fiber properties were investigated. According to the experimental analysis, it was determined that angora, which is the finest and the shortest animal fiber, showed the lowest felting propensity. On the other hand, Suri alpaca fiber with a low scale height gave the highest feltability due to being the longest among the investigated fibers.