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| Friday, June 13, 2008
An engineering marvel from students
It took them 7 kg of fibre, a month and some hard thinking to
make it
New use: Students and faculty of the S.S.M.College of Engineering,
Komarapalayam, display T-shirts knitted from bamboo fibre
Komarapalayam: Out of bamboo comes not only music but also T-shirts,
say textile technology students of S.S.M. College of
Engineering.
The students S. Aravindan, B. Jana, S. John Josea and N. Ramesh
Babu along with faculty S. Senthil Nathan have knit t-shirts
using bamboo fibre. The quartet took up the challenge as part
of their project work.
Says Mr. Jana: “We wanted to try something different,
and chose bamboo fibre at our guide’s instance.”
They bought imported bamboo fibre and tried knitting it.
In doing so the boys had difficulty. “Hitherto the fibre
was knitted after blending cotton but an all-bamboo T-shirt
was a challenge in that the knitting machine’s speed had
to brought down,” says Mr. Aravindan. The boys halved
the speed. It took them 7 kg of fibre, a month and some hard
thinking to produce about half-a-dozen T-shirts.
The boys then dyed the t-shirts to discover that bamboo had
better colour absorption capacity, greater lustre, better anti-microbial
properties and poorer colour bleeding properties than cotton.
They also found out that it was lighter in weight and possessed
better moisture capacity, meaning better sweat absorption capacity.
The T-shirts’ bursting strength (strength of the yarn)
was poorer compared to cotton. It was costly as well. The quartet
says it is yet to explore the all-bamboo T-shirts’ marketing
potential. The college chairman, M. S. Mathivanan, appreciated
the boys’ efforts.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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