Determination of sizing conditions for E class glass fibre yarn using Taguchi parameter design

Abstract

E class glass fibre has attributes of high strength, non-electric conduction, light weight and high temperature resistant, which especially make it suitable for electronic applications. Good sizing conditions will strengthen the glass fibre yarn, reduce the number of broken filaments, and speed up the weaving process. However, in the literature, little attention has been devoted to study of determining the appropriate sizing conditions. Parameter design, introduced by Taguchi, has been shown to be an effective approach for improving quality and productivity at low cost. The present paper reports a case study on application of parameter design to determining the optimal sizing conditions for E class glass fibre yarn such that the number of fuzzes of each filament can be reduced and the frequency of rub resistance of each filament may be enhanced. The modified L16 orthogonal array, the smaller the better and larger the better signal to noise ratios and the analysis of variance are employed to carry out the bivariate parameter design and its corresponding data analysis. Through this study, not only can the optimal sizing conditions for the E class glass fibre yarn be obtained, but also the significant factors that affect the number of fuzzes and the frequency of rub resistance of each filament can be found. Experimental results are provided to confirm the effectiveness of this approach.