Empirical Modeling of Lint Cleaner Effects On Fiber Quality

Lint cleaning is a critical step in cotton ginning that improves the color and grade of cotton lint and increases its market value.  On the other hand, lint cleaning reduces net bale weight, decreases fiber length characteristics, and increases short fiber content and nep counts, both of which present significant problems at the textile mill.  Therefore, it is important to optimize how lint cleaners are used and how they are designed.  Several researchers have studied lint-cleaner effects on bale characteristics and fiber quality, but their studies have been limited to narrow contexts such as a specific growing region or harvest method.  The objective of this study is to develop a web-based simulation model that spans existing documented knowledge of lint-cleaning effects.  The model that has been developed includes most of the empirical relationships found in the literature.  An effort was made to incorporate them into the model seamlessly and provide a user-friendly interface.  The model requires the user to input initial fiber-quality and lint-cleaner machine parameters, and it outputs user-selected parameters including final fiber-quality and bale characteristics (such as fiber loss, turnout, and total value).  This web-based tool is expected to be used by ginners to consider varying lint-cleaning parameters in order to maximize profits, or by lint-cleaner manufacturers and researchers in order to design lint cleaners that generate less fiber damage.