Reducing HVI Strength Variability by Sensing Humidity

Abstract

Short-term exposure of small cotton specimens to nonstandard atmospheric conditions can cause errors in their strength measurements. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of local humidity changes on strength measurements. Two production model high volume instruments were equipped with humidity sensors near their specimen brushing stations. The system from one vendor was more sensitive to short-term humidity cycles (1.15 compared to 0.6 %gf/tex/%RH), while the other system was more sensitive to humidity changes including sample conditioning (1.81 compared to 1.42 %gf/tex/%RH). Both instruments showed a wide range of strength-humidity sensitivities for the 57 cottons surveyed.