Arindam Basu

Northern India Textile Research Association | NITRA · Textile Engineering

The increase in personal incomes and continuous development of roads are resulting in increased number of vehicles on the road throughout the world. These vehicles need to be disposed off after their life time and this can cause great harm to the environment. To make the vehicles after life recyclable and environment friendly many parts are being m...

Awareness of environment has made people thinking of more usage of natural bio-degradable fibres for their apparel and other textile products. The products produced from these fibres such as banana, nettle, bhimal, hemp, sisal, pineapple leaf fibres are increasing continuously. One of the most important properties of the fibres which can affect spi...

Cotton is the most popular natural fibre in the world. Though it is biodegradable and renewable fibre it should be used to maximum level before allowing to bio-degrade. Recycled cotton are being mixed with virgin cotton to increase the life of the fibre and save CO2 emission and water consumption. The experimental trial shows that up to 30% recycle...

Presently a large amount of synthetic fibres are being used in agro-textile products. The products like mulch, mat, crop cover are very popular in this category, but they are not biodegradable and leaves micro-plastic in the fields. To avoid this problem mulch mat and crop cover have been developed using sunhemp and banana fibres. Those showed posi...

Functional textiles and clothing have witnessed significant advancements in recent years, driven by emerging trends, technological innovations, and evolving consumer preferences. This comprehensive review conducts a critical analysis of the most recent trends, Challenges, and Opportunities within the field of functional textiles and clothing. It ex...

– Protection from hazard faced in any profession need to be provided to the workmen. Protective textiles such as fire fighters’ suit, Nuclear Biological Chemical protection suit, oil rig workers suit etc are being widely used for protection. Though its primary objective is to protect from external risk it should provide proper comfort to the wearer...

In modern sports, protective pads and gloves are indispensable to safeguard athletes from high-speed impacts, as witnessed in cricket, hockey, baseball, and other similar sports. Conventional padding materials, often composed of PU foam, have long been used, but their comfort properties are often suboptimal. To address this limitation, we have unde...

There is an awareness within people regarding the long term damages caused by the synthetic textile products used in passenger and commercial vehicles when they end their lives. In a passenger vehicle, more than 25 kgs. of textile materials are used. An attempt has been made to replace synthetic fibres with biodegradable, renewable, eco-friendly fi...

Various textile fibres - natural and synthetic have recently been used in agriculture. Synthetic fibre-based agricultural textiles are not eco-compatible because they are not biodegradable. Natural fibres are biodegradable and support the retention of moisture and increase the organic content of soil and fertility. At present, in the case of natura...

In present days, sports activities have become a very important profession both by popularity and financial terms. Many of these sports, such as cricket, hockey, and baseball, risk injuries due to hitting of balls and other objects to the players, which can affect them very badly. Presently used protective pads are made of foams and not so comforta...

In present days, sports activities have become a very important profession both by popularity and financial terms. Many of these sports, such as cricket, hockey, and baseball, risk injuries due to hitting of balls and other objects to the players, which can affect them very badly. Presently used protective pads are made of foams and not so comforta...

An attempt has been made to develop cotton-treated fabrics to be used as home textile and decorative products inside the room, which can adsorb carbon dioxide and thus reduce indoor air pollution. Cotton fabric has been treated with bentonite clay, aerosol fumed silica and zeolite separately, and then evaluated for adsorption of CO 2 gas using newl...

This chapter discusses about the machineries shown in ITMA 2023, Milan, Italy in spinning and nonwoven divisions. The major developments have been covered in this chapter with important aspects such as automation, sustainability, application of Artificial Intelligence etc.

Sustainability is a buzzword today for every aspect of life and the textile industry in no exception. This article discussed about the R&D activities in Textile Sector and observed that for each research and development work sustainability factor should be considered. Carbon foot print, water footprint, biodegradability of the materials need to be...

The paper reports about extraction of textile grade fibres from Pine needles, which are found abundantly on the ground in Indian Himalayan region and one of the main causes of forest fire. The fibres were converted into yarn and fabrics. The detail structure of the fibres were also studied.

The levels of air pollution are being measured in different part of cities and are being reported regularly in media. However, indoor air pollution can be more polluted than outside air. Residences, office premises, school buildings, guest houses, hotels, hospitals etc. are the main sources of indoor air pollution with the presence of an excessive...

Bamboos are one of the world's fastest growing perennial plants. They are members of the Poaceae (Gramineae) family and are abundant in India. According to reports, India is home to 125 indigenous and 11 exotic bamboo species from 23 genera. The demand of bamboo (regenerated cellulosic) fibre is increasing day by day in India but almost all of them...

The world of textiles has shown remarkable growth within past two decades by introducing more and more natural fibres and the fibres regenerated from natural resources. Nowadays there seems to be a huge demand of sustainable natural / eco-friendly regenerated fibres. Various types of natural plants and herbs are being used for the purpose and many...

Smart textile has become popular over the years and with time its functions has changed. Presently the smart textile related to healthcare has become most successful. This article reviews some of the latest development in the application of smart textiles for health monitoring and sportswear. Also it reports the development of a smart textiles by N...

In the present study, a strategic designing of multilayer shield was planned to enhance the multiple reflection phenomenon to achieve maximum absorption properties in microwave frequency (C & X band) range. Multi-layer EMR shields were developed using pure cotton fabric and conductive woven fabrics, incorporated with copper-based & silver-plated hy...

Indoor air pollution plays an important role in our lives as it is equally or more harmful than out door air pollution. A study has been conducted to find out a solution for the same. NITRA has developed some finishing processes for curtain fabrics and other home textiles which can absorb up to 60% of the pollutant from the atmosphere. This is a ch...

Sustainability is a major issue driving the world. Textile industry is one of the most polluting industry. The effort of reduction of pollution and help in developing sustainable products start from raw materials itself. Choosing sustainable, bio degradable, less carbon emitting, recyclable fibres and fibres which require minimum chemical processin...

Product development is key to survival of any industry with change of time. This article discusses about the process of new product development in textile and apparel industry. Major points considered during this process are demand of customers, availability of new raw materials, sustainability, economic validity and responsibiiity towards nature....

This article discusses about the R&D activities undertaken by the textile research institutes in India and how it has helped Indian textile and apparel industry. Over the years the textile and apparel industries in India has grown drastically and it played a very important role in Indian economy. The R&D activities directly benefited the industry h...

PPE is made to protect its wearer from the risk faced from his profession. The health workers are helping a large number of patients in coping with the problems due to the spread of Covid 19 virus. This article details about the standards for the PPEs, to be used by the health workers, materials used and testing methods.

With the advent of modern engineered fibers and highly developed electronics a new variety of textile material has been evolved which is known as smart textiles. A smart textile generally has five major functions, that is, sensors, actuators, data processing, energy supply, and communication. Development of thin, flexible, and highly sensitive sens...

Indoor pollution sources that release gases or particles into the air are the primary cause of indoor air quality problems. Inadequate ventilation can increase indoor pollutant levels by not bringing in enough outdoor air to dilute emissions from in door sources and by not carrying indoor air pollutants out of the area. High temperature and humidit...

The World is going through an unprecedented situation due to pandemic caused by a virus named as Covid19, which was not known earlier. The pandemic has caused death over 2 million people throughout the world. These unfortunate peoples include the doctors, nurses, health workers, security personnel and other front line workers who were helping the p...

With the advent of modern engineered fibres and highly developed electronics a new variety of textile material has been evolved which is known as smart textiles. A smart textile generally has five major functions i.e. sensors, actuators, data processing, energy supply and communication. Development of thin, flexible and highly sensitive sensors has...

Sustainability is the buzzword for all industry today as people have understood that if we disturb the nature as we are doing today for longer period there will be no resources, pure air and water for our future generations. The concept of ‘Circular Economy’ has evolved from the way forward to save our World from further damages. The Circular econo...

This study involves a comprehensive evaluation of electromagnetic shielding characteristics of multilayer three-dimensional conductive fabrics by using cotton/copper wrapped hybrid yarn in X band frequency range. Five, three-dimensional fabrics with different structural configuration, such as orthogonal, angle interlock, cellular spacer, multi-tubu...

The article discusses about the quality control instruments, both off-line and on-line, developed by various manufacturers and shown in ITMA 2019 at Barcelona, Spain.

The article reviews the developments in spinning machines shown in ITMA 2019 at Barcelona, Spain. The developments implementation of artificial intelligence, internet of things beside core technical developments. The machines have become faster, less human intrusive and producing better quality products.

Protective textile is mainly being used to protect a person from fire, heat, chemicals, gas etc. which is faced by him/her in his/her profession. The wearer can perform well only if he/she feels comfortable after wearing the protective garments. This article reviews the work done in the area of various comfort properties of protective textiles and...

The 58th Technological Conference, jointly organized by the Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association (ATIRA), Bombay Textile Research Association (BTRA), the South India Textile Research Association (SITRA) and Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA), was held at NITRA, Ghaziabad on 15th February 2019. In all, twelve papers, divi...

The advent of electronic sensors and other developments have helped the textile technologists to develop smart/ intelligent textiles. In the present study a smart textile garment has been developed which can sense the heart beat, body temperature and geographical position of the wearer. The software, developed under this project, sends information...

There are various types of fibres available as textile fibres. These are either natural or manmade (synthetic). Recent trends show that use of natural fibres is increasing all across the world as compared to synthetic fibres because natural fibres are eco-friendly, skin friendly and most importantly they are biodegradable. The Indian Himalayan regi...

Recent resurgence of natural fibres in place of synthetic counter parts is gaining momentum all across the world due to their eco-friendliness, biodegradability and skin friendliness. The Himalayan region has been bestowed with enormous fibre wealth, which has been used by the locals for their needs; the natural fibres can be exploited to improve t...

When we talk about protective work wear the professions come to our mind first are fire fighters, factory workers, bullet proof vest/ jackets etc. But beside that it is very important to provide protective work wear to the workers, engaged in un-organised sectors as they also face professional hazards and some time they can be fatal or major type....

Work wear is clothing worn for work especially work that involves manual labor. The work wears are designed to protect the wearer from the risk, specific to the job, performed by him/her. More commonly discussed work wear are fire fighters' work wear, bullet proof vests/jackets, extreme cold weather clothing, NBCC suits etc. This article discusses...

Fabric drape is one of the most important properties of fabric which determines the feel, shape etc of the garments. The different measurement techniques have been discussed. The benefits of those measurements have been compared. An electronic drape meter has been developed at NITRA using image analysis technique. Same has been described also,

Quality Assurance in apparel manufacturing is a vast area that covers all aspects of quality, process and product. The book covers important aspects of quality assurance such as clothing construction standards, fabric inspection systems, acceptance quality level (AQL), types of defects, apparel performance standards, quality costs in apparel produc...

A commercial model of electronic drapemeter has been developed based on image- analysis technique.

As the control of the textile complex has shifted further downstream to the consumer, specialized demands has rendered manufacturers to diversify the existing product with suitable modifications in conventional textile structures. Knitting process is an obvious choice for manufacturers due to its flexibility and adaptability in form of tool techniq...

Silk is the only natural fiber available in filament form. The fibrous waste generated by the extraction process (reeling) and rearing is converted into yarns using a spinning process. In addition, a few varieties of silk are spun to produce yarns. This chapter deals with advances in the spinning process used for the production of silk and blended...

The quality of any material needs to be assessed for the processing of fiber, yarn, and fabric, and for its end use purpose. Unless the quality is quantified, it becomes impossible to control. Silk is called the "queen of natural fibers" because of its unique qualities, such as extra fineness, luster, and feel. This chapter deals with the methods o...

This chapter provides an advanced understanding of the global silk sector and the important properties of silk fibers. A brief history of silk, global silk fiber production, and silk fiber classification is provided. The physical properties of mulberry, tasar, muga, and eri silk fibers are explained. The silk fiber structure, levels of fibroin prot...

The remarkable properties of silk fibres have gained them a prominent place in the field of technical textiles. Advances in Silk Science and Technology explores recent developments in silk processing, properties and applications. Techniques for manufacturing spider silk are also discussed and the current and future applications of this fibre are re...

The raw silk testing data generated from 2009 to 2013 in the Silk conditioning and Testing House (SCTH) established in the premises of Government Silk Exchange, Kanchipuram were statistically analyzed to compare the influence of different silk reeling machines on the quality of raw silk. It is found that the raw silk produced on the multiend silk r...

Raw silk fiber is composed of a fibrous protein called fibroin, which is surrounded by gum-like protein Sericin. In textile applications, the Sericin (gum) needs to be removed. Cold plasma treatment is a promising technology for partial degumming of silk without damaging the delicate fibroin fiber. In this chapter, low pressure (RF) plasma treatmen...

Machines play a major role in determining the productivity of an industry, the quality of its products, power consumption and working atmosphere. All these factors are dependent on the mechanical condition of the machines. In spinning units, it is also very important that the condition of the major machines is maintained by systematic and well-plan...

Re-reeling process is equally important as reeling itself, as it has direct influence on the quality of the end product i.e., silk. The authors dwell upon the scientific method and dos & don'ts in re-reeling to derive the best possible quality of raw silk.

The computerized energy dispersive x-ray flourscent (ED-XRF) spectrometer equipment is used for non-destructive analysis of zari thread, a fine dyed silk core yarn wrapped with gold plated silver-copper alloy flattened wire as sheath

In order to ascertain the genuineness of raw material used in twisitng, it is necessary to determine various silk quality parameters, among which size and size devaition are two important indexes to influence the texture and performance of the twisted silk.

Mass ratio of silk to sheath metal elements in zari thread for silk saree manufacture varies from 18:82 to 28:72. thus, based on silk content, contents of various metal elements in zari thread can be setimated from the metal purity values of the zari sheath metal measured with spectrophotometer.

Silk saree is characterized by its sheen, colour and design. Atypical silk saree produced on the handloom in Tamilnadu is marketed for the pure zari thread used as extra warp or weft to produce the traditional design / motif.

The ability of silk yarns to take up twist without deterioration has been studied in terms of breaking twist angle. The study has brought to focus certain important aspects with regard to the torsional rigidity and the brittleness of silk yarns. It is observed that the brittleness of bivoltine is significantly higher than that of multibivoltine. Th...

Cocoon reeling performance is characterized by a host of factors that depend largely on racial characters of silkworms besides rearing technology and cocoon spinning conditions. Presented here is an overview on these factors that contribute to the quality of cocoon and silk fabric.

Re-reeling process of tasar silk yarn poses significant challenges due to high yarn breaks, yarn layer adhesion issues and fibre damage during the process. In-order to improve the re-reeling performance of tasar silk yarns, a permeation chamber has been developed which uniformly wets the different layers of tasar silk yarns and also ensures higher...

In a natural product like silk, inherent variations manifest layer vise in cocoon and any definite mode of variation in property down the cocoon layers may show up objectionable fabric pattern either from visual or textural standpoint. Amino acid composition of Tassar silk fabrics (Antheraea Mylitta D) is characterized by the predominance of amino...

Daba tasar cocoons have been subjected to reeling process and the characteristics of silk yarn reeled from outer, middle and inner layers of the cocoon have been studied in this article. SEM images of the silk filaments of these layers of the cocoon have been studied to understand the surface morphology. The denier variations in the silk filaments...

Chemical processing of tasar silk is slightly different in comparison with mulberry silk due to the structure and composition of fibre. Tasar silk contains tanin and calcium compound, due to which it gets natural brown colour and harsh feel. Higher crystallinity of tasar silk comparative to the mulberry silk also poses difficulties in its chemical...

Silk reeling sector is a vital component of sericulture, which links the on farm activity of cocoon production with the industrial activity of fabric production. Tasar raw silk contributes to 16 % of the total Vanya silk production in the country and 1.78 % of total raw silk production. There is an ever-increasing demand for tasar silk in the domes...

Engineering yarn quality has remained a challenge for researchers and shop-floor technicians for a long time. The advent of high-speed computers has helped researchers in facing this challenge in a better manner. Attempts have been made to apply linear programming, mechanistic models and statistical models to the assessment of engineering yarn qual...

Yarn engineering plays an important role in producing fabric for particular use. It is a common practice that yarn properties are predicted from constituent fibre properties. Cotton properties being highly variable in nature attracted various scientists from all over the world to derive prediction equations. More than 200 articles have been publish...

Yarn structure and its relationship with the properties have attracted many researchers and scientists. This has resulted in a large number of published research works scattered in many places. The importance of this subject has increased due to the need of yarn with best possible quality at optimum cost. Also, the diversification of textiles in va...

A study was conducted to analyze the influence of winding on yarn evenness CV (change in evenness) and hairiness by using optical method. The study revealed that the increase of yarn hairiness after winding was due to raising of hairs that further depends on the basic properties of yarn. The cotton yarns at ring bobbin stage were assessed by using...

An instrument has been developed to measure the combined effect of fibre coherence and resiliency, commonly known as processing propensity. The results show good correlation between fibre processing propensity and yarn properties. The yarns produced with high propensity value cotton show higher imperfections when same process parameters are used. 1...

Bamboo fiber, a regenerated cellulosic fiber obtained from bamboo plant is a 100% eco-friendly, biodegradable, and natural anti-bacterial. A study has been conducted at SITRA to assess the anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties of bandage fabrics made out of bamboo fibers and compared with those made from cotton and rayon. As a result, it found...