Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
D Saravanan, Member
T Ramachandran, Fellow
Processing of garments offers many advantages compared to conventional route adopted in dyeing and
finishing of fabrics. Many developments have taken place in the field of garment processing, especially in
dyeing and finishing and easy care finishing has become synonymous with finishing of garments. Nevertheless
stringent measures are required in the case of garment processing since any damage at this stage would
result in value added losses. This paper discusses certain aspects related to dyeing and finishing of garments,
in the selected area.
INTRODUCTION Unlike fabric dyeing machines where rollers and jets are
commonly employed in moving the fabrics through the
The benefits of garment processing revolve around quick machine and liquor, garment dyeing machines require special
response, improved inventory control and it is an obvious arrangements to move garments with reduced tumbling
way to meet quick fashion changes also1. During 20th century, actions. Salient features of drum type machines, extractors,
most of the developmental works were aimed at enhancing paddle type and jet circulators have been discussed in the
the comfort properties of the fabrics and garments along past by many authors13, 14, 19-21 as shown in Table 1. The
with various functional finishes by improving ‘use’ value, attributes of ideal garment dyeing machine would include
enhancing ‘esteem’ value and imparting ‘gimmick’ values 2 - 4. automatic controller for cycle repetition and optimization,
There have been considerable concerns over the discomfort shade consistency, centrifugal extraction, heating facility to
of wrinkle free garments due to hydrophobic nature of finish make the cycle faster, cooling facility, lint filter to give cleaner
imparted to the fabrics in conventional treatments and look to the garments, sampling device for better shade
reduced absorption properties. Washing of denim goods and management, addition tank, tilting mechanism for faster
the associated problems have a longer history and extended unloading of the garments, variable speed for processing
to other items such as chambrays and indigo dyed fabrics5 - 9. different garments and volume level control for shade
reproducibility.
GARMENT DYEING AND DYEING MACHINES
Paddles are widely accepted for sweaters, loosely knitted
The dyeing of the garments demands more care than fabrics goods due to their soft dyeing action, which avoids abrading
due to the fact that the processing involves value added and pilling the garments as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
goods. The entire garment dyeing activities may be broken For gentleness, the dyeing is carried out with an m:l ratio of
down into four categories, namely, fully fashioned garment 30:1 to 40:1, the blades of the paddle are either curved or
dyeing, cut and sewn garment, dyeing of 100% cotton goods rounded and the rotating speed of the paddle can be regulated
for boutique trades and processing of denims leading to stone from 1.5 rpm to 40 rpm. Overhead paddle, lateral paddle and
wash, snow wash, over dyeing, stoneless washing and high temperature paddle machines serve the needs of the
highlighting effects. A multi-colour splatter effect called entire range of the garments.
‘splatter dyeing’ has been made possible on denim garments
without the necessity of tieing or knotting, using reactive Dye extractors with multi-pocket designs have compartments
dyes combining, exhaust dyeing, pad-batch and printing to control garment movements, abrasion due to mechanical
technologies 9 . Since majority of the garments are
Table 1 Garment dyeing machines and their principles
constructed from cotton fabrics, reactive and direct dyes
are the most popular classes though other classes are also Type of Type of liquor and
used to some extent10-17. Exhaust dyeing with pigments is construction garment movement
possible only with materials pretreated with a cationic agent Paddling machine Mechanical arrangements
which imparts substantivity to overcome the non-substantitive like paddle, drum
in nature of the pigments18. Drum machine Hydrodynamic movement
D Saravanan is with the Department of Textile Technology, with adjustable jets
Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam, Washing-centrifuging Hydrodynamic circulating dyeing
Erode 638 401, Tamil Nadu and T Ramachandran is with the machines machines with so called floating
Department of Textile Technology, P S G College of Technology, liquor circulation principle
Coimbatore 641 004, Tamil Nadu .
Jet dyeing centrifuging Jets and nozzles are used to
This paper (modified) was received on February 28, 2008. Written machines facilitate movement of the
discussion on the paper will be entertained till April 30, 2009. garments
14 IE(I) Journal–TX
Figure 1 Horizontal paddle dyeing machine
FINISHING OF GARMENTS
16 IE(I) Journal–TX
Laccases, a sub-class of oxidoreductases, are multi-copper in the fabric state, prior to garmenting, results in panel to
oxidases that catalyse the oxidation of a wide range of panel shade variation in the garment dyeing process30.
phenols and other substrates with concomitant reduction of
oxygen to water. Laccases, with certain low molecular In the case of reactive dyes, consistent shade replication
weight organic mediators, can result in rapid decolourization depends on material to liquor ratio, alkali and salt
and are also used in washing the denim garments though concentration, heating rate, fixation time and temperature.
they are not effective by themselves in the process. In the The initial temperature of the textile substrate and process
presence of an aqueous medium, the laccases get oxidized bath can influence the efficiency of the wetting process.
and convert the mediator into free radicals which Establishing the dyeing procedures for each garments style,
subsequently convert the indigo into isatin, isatic acid and dye system and set-controls can help to address the
anthranilic acid. The conjugated double bond between the two variations in load, water volume, temperature and cycle time.
carbonyl groups in indigo is cleaved and the dye chromophore Garment to garment shade differences can be minimized
is destroyed proportionately to the dosage of the enzyme, with machine loads containing garments made from the same
which is considered to be the major advantage of laccases lot of fabric. Significant darkening of the fabrics occurs after
compared to conventional acid wash process 47-50. subjecting it to calendaring because of the increased optical
contact and reduced light scattering power. Variations in
PRECAUTIONS IN GARMENTS PROCESSING shade among the garment panels, between garments can
also occur due to treatments with optical brightening agents,
Processing of garments has come through a long way to mixing of panels from fabrics.
reach the present prominent status. Though garment dyeing
appears to be attractive, it calls for many stringent Processing problems related to the garment size control
requirements related to panels, seams, elasticated areas, and appearance normally result from variations in yarn
waist band, cuffs and problems often occur due to shrinkage size /twist, ends/inch, picks/inch or courses/inch in the
behaviour, chafe marks/creases, accessories, sewing knitted fabrics. Tight seams in the garments become further
threads, interlining and care labels1, 12, 13, 14, 17, 51-62. Poor fabric tighter, due to the shrinkage in a high temperature dyeing
preparation and the garments manufactured using the panels process, and prevent dye penetration on seams and
that are taken from different lots of the fabrics result in underneath the stitches. Dimensionally stable thread with
problems that are difficult to rectify at later stages. low elongation will help to minimize seam puckering after
dyeing. In the case of knitted fabrics, pre-relaxation is
Some of the surface effects of the fabrics visually influence employed to avoid the problems of seam pucker and garment
the depth and hue of the dyed garments55. Size, cross- section distortion and such fabrics can also be used along with woven
and crimp of the filaments also affect the depth of the shade, fabrics as fabric cut and sewn garment designs. Too much
due to change in absorption and scattering power of light. bulky or tight stitch must be avoided in elasticated areas,
The apparent colour of yarns made from filaments tends to waist bands and cuffs. The various patterns present in the
vary with the angle of viewing, whereas such sensitivity is garments must be adjusted to compensate for shrinkage
not obvious in the case of staple fibre yarns. Fabrics during dyeing process14.
containing raised surfaces exhibit variation in shade in the
side and end arise mainly due to difference in the optical The physical condition of garments, process variables and
origin, which is traceable to the path length traversed by the their effects on garment finishing has been discussed in the
light in the longitudinal and transverse directions in fibres. past 30, 34, 64,. Problems related to electrolysis of ionic
processing solutions resulting from galvanic action of
Chafe marks/creases are, mostly, related to drum dyeing bimetallic garment accessories need special care. Anionic
machines and in many occasions, garments are turned inside inhibitors are used to protect metal accessories, such as,
out and dyed with non-foaming lubricants. Tendency to button, zippers made of non-ferrous, white metals from
entangle can be reduced by tacking and bagging the articles oxidation and tarnishing.
which in turn reduces the abrasion, wear and tear of interior
metallic surface. Fibre type (natural / thermoplastic) fabric The cross linking treatment of cotton fabrics and garments
construction (tightly woven crease prone), loading (higher results many changes in physical properties of the fibres,
loading-higher creases), addition of lubricant (special yarn and fabrics depend on the extent of reactions.
lubricants reduces friction) are some of the parameters that Excessive cross linking results in loss of the strength and
influence chafe marks. Swollen cellulosic fibres are especially abrasion resistance and while in adequate cross linking leads
sensitive to mechanical friction, while thermoplastic synthetic to poor shrinkage control, surface appearance, smoothness
fibres tend to form permanent creases58. and crease retention. It has been shown that relatively low
concentration of formaldehyde (2% OWF) produces more
For the garments prepared from the grey fabric, oxidative improvements in the crease recovery on cotton than rayon65.
desize-scour-chemick-peroxide bleach sequence is used Water spotting of the fabric, prior to curing, causes irreparable
prior to processing. Residual hydrogen peroxide in the dye-resist spots on the garments. At higher temperature,
bleached materials can interfere with dyes and spoil the increase in catalyst concentration decreases tear strength
colour values. Uneven finish applications, curing conditions than at low temperature (165°C, 143°C) without any
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