What is heatsetting?
March 7th, 2007 | In sales and distribution | No commentsAuthor: Lisa Thaha
What is heatsetting?
Heatsetting is the process of stabilization and setting a “memory” of twist in plied yarns.
Below, you’ll find a simplified description. Carpet yarn is mainly made out of thermoplastic fibers, i.e. polypropylen, nylon, etc.,. and before the thermoplastic fibers are ready for tufting / weaving and further processes until you have a finished carpet, there are some pre-processes – see picture of the ideal BCF-process (Pict. 1)
These fibers for the carpet yarn are gained through the so called extrusion process: That is “plastic” chips are being melted and then the liquid mass is squeezed through”sieves”. Thus fine filaments, are formed. These filaments are then spun to a yarn thread and with other processes the thread is twisted and/or cabled (Pict. 2-4).
Now, you will have a yarn, but in order for the yarn to stay as it has been twisted/cabled, you have to fix this state, that is: you have to set the “memory”. And for this you have the heat setting process.
With the heat setting process the molecular pattern of the thermoplastic materials will be rearranged through heat and steam and will form a new pattern after cooling. That is, the state generated through twisting/cabling will be stabilized. And as long as no higher temperature will be applied to the yarn the state generated through the heat setting process will remain and the yarn can be used for making.
