Abstract
The textile and its allied industries have had its research focus on ways of alleviating the risks and losses posed by uncontrolled fires. Textiles have been chemically modified to impart flame/fire retardancy (FR) properties and also studies have been done on inherently FR fibers. This research focuses on Polysulfonamide (PSA) fiber, an inherently FR fiber developed by Shanghai Textile Research Institute and Shanghai Synthetic Fiber Research Institute. The purpose of this research is to study ways of incorporating PSA into yarns that will utilize the benefits of the PSA fiber while compensating for its limitations. The 100% PSA yarn and five different percentage variations of PSA/cotton blended yarns were produced by ring spinning. The blending methods were intimate blending and core spinning, with cotton yarns being used as core and PSA fibers as sheath. The tensile, evenness, hairiness and FR properties of these yarns together with the blending methods were studied and compared. The results showed that the blended yarn yielded better tensile and hairiness properties whereas the core spun yarn had better evenness and flame retardancy properties.