Abstract
Increasing production of animal fibres has increased the need for a portable instrument that measures fibre diameter and associated characteristics with precision and accuracy. This research evaluated a new portable fibre tester (PFT) by measuring the diameter and related characteristics of tops and scoured fibres of wool, alpaca, and vicuña. The PFT was constructed with integrated mechanical, optical, electronic, and informatic components. Textile tops of sheep wool, alpaca fibres, and mohair goat fibres were used as standard references to calibrate the PFT and determine its accuracy and precision. The results were compared with those from a wool industry standard instrument (OFDA2000) that uses similar technology. The PFT had high accuracy (-0.01, -0.12, and -0.01 μm) for average fibre diameter (AFD) of wool, alpaca, and mohair fibres, respectively. Deviations of standard tops (ST) were within industry-accepted tolerance ranges. Standard errors, indicating precision, were low, ranging from 0.07 to 0.25 μm, 0.02 to 0.44 μm, and 0.09 to 0.024 μm, for wool, alpaca, and mohair fibre tops, respectively. The correlations of measurements of AFD from the two instruments were 0.99 for wool, alpaca, and mohair fibres, but lower for vicuña fibres (0.82). No evidence of bias was observed. Therefore, the PFT may be used as an alternative instrument for measuring fibre diameter and quantifying variation in diameter of wool, mohair, and alpaca fibres. The PFT has appeal for use in the field for practical animal selection and fleece classification based on fibre characteristics.
 Keywords: alpaca, fibre diameter, mohair, vicuña, wool
Highlights
Several instruments have been developed to measure fibre diameter (Qi et al, 1995; Li et al, 2002; Baltuano et al, 2005; Brims, 2006)
Calibration of the portable fibre tester (PFT) entailed the calculation of simple linear regression equations, coefficients of determination, and correlations of measurements made in pixels with known values characterizing wool, mohair, and alpaca standard tops (ST), in metric units
The linear regression equations and diagnostic statistics indicated that the measurement of fibre diameter from the PFT would be accurate, at least within the range of the data used for calibration, that is, between average fibre diameter (AFD) of 15.7 and 35.4 μm, 19 and 36 μm, and 22.3 and 43.1 μm for wool, alpaca, and mohair fibres, respectively
Summary
Several instruments have been developed to measure fibre diameter (Qi et al, 1995; Li et al, 2002; Baltuano et al, 2005; Brims, 2006). The FibreLux micrometer uses light diffraction (Walker et al, 2018) and the PFT uses digital image analysis (Quispe et al, 2017). These instruments quantify the quality traits of fibres objectively (Cottle & Baxter, 2015) within seconds, providing measurements of average fibre diameter, variation in fibre diameter and a prediction of comfort factor. All other instruments use methods such as resistance to airflow (ASTM, 2018; James & Bow, 1968.) to measure fibre diameter and associated characteristics indirectly. Some studies have demonstrated the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of these instruments (Scobie et al, 1994; Baxter, 1998; Baxter & Marler, 2004; Quispe et al, 2018; Walker et al, 2018) using precision indicators such as standard error, confidence interval, tolerance
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
