Results
Fibre characteristics
Different methods to examine the fibre characteristics were
applied. An overview is given in Fig. 1. The precise values
can be taken from Table 1.
The fibre width was measured with the Fibreshape
system. With widths of 15.6 lm, cotton fibres were almost
three times finer than kenaf fibres (43.3 lm).
Tensile strength was determined on the one hand as collective
strength measured by Stelometer and on the other
hand as single element strength measured by using Dia-
Stron. The cotton fibres’ collective strength (15.1 cN/tex)
was less than half of their single element strength (36.9 cN/
tex). Kenaf fibres had a collective strength of 27.8 cN/tex and
a single element strength of 41.6 cN/tex. The collective
strength is always lower than the single element strength