Measuring Length, Thickness, Curl and Orientation of Firer Segments in Nonwoven Fabrics, 1995 Nonwovens Conference Proceedings

Bugao Xu

The University of Texas

This paper describes the image analysis techniques used for measuring structural characteristics of fiber or fiber bundle segments in a thin nonwoven fabric. The measurable characteristics include length, thickness, curl and orientation of fiber segments. A new skeletonization algorithm for extracting the simplified structure from a nonwoven image is developed. Thickness of fiber segments is calculated directly in the process of skeletonizing the web, while the length, orientation and curl of fiber segments are measured in the skeletonized image. Fiber segments are identified and measured by tracing skeletons between any two adjacent intersection points of fiber skeletons. For a curled segment, the best-fitting line is used to calculate its orientation angle. Several nonwoven fabrics are tested, and the results are compared with those measured by other methods. This image system enables the users to obtain comprehensive measurements on fiber segments in a single procedure.