A simple method for measuring the monofilament diameter of continuous filament yarn with high bending stiffness via synthetic laser imaging

Abstract The uniformity of the monofilament diameter plays a key role in the performance of continuous filament yarns and their subsequent products. However, traditional methods for measuring fiber or filament diameters focus on estimating the arithmetic mean data, and only part of the diameter data can be obtained. Additionally, most of these traditional methods require complex sample preparations, such as by making cross-sectional slice samples. This study intends to present a simple method for measuring almost all of the monofilament diameters in a single yarn. It is not necessary to make slice samples. After the yarn sample or fabric sample is taken and prepared, synthetic laser images can be obtained directly by scanning the cross section of the sample with a 3D laser scanning confocal microscope. According to the results of many experiments, more than 90% of the monofilament diameters of a single yarn can be measured. The result also shows that the difference in the diameter data between the traditional method and the synthetic laser imaging method is less than 2%. This method presents the differences between the majority of monofilament diameters, and the yarn clustering property can be evaluated by the sum of the monofilament diameters and the yarn cross-sectional area.