Our Facilities
Research and development at NIRI is supported by comprehensively equipped laboratories. Some of the facilities are listed below.
Fabric Prototyping
Drylaid
- Fibre blending
- Fibre extraction and pulling plant
- Carding (parallel-laid)
- Carding (cross-laid)
- Vertical-lapping
- Airlaid (short fibre and long fibre systems)
Wetlaid
- Wetlaid (oriented hand sheets) and fibre preparation
Spunlaid
- Spunblown (BIAX Melblowing)
Nanofibre
- Electrospinning (Elmarco Nanospider)
- Forcespinning (Fiberio Centrifugal)
Bonding
- Hydroentanglement (7 injectors up to 180 bar)
- Needlepunching (flat and structured)
- Thermal bonding: calendar
- Thermal bonding: through-air
- Chemical bonding (various impregnation methods including foam)
- Ultrasonic
Other
- Drying and curing
- Hot melt
- Foulard applicator
- Coating
- Vacuum Bagging (composites)
- Filament melt extrusion
- Wet spinning (fibrous webs)
- Plasma treatment
Testing and Analysis
Fabric structure, fibre and surface analysis
- Image analysis (fibre orientation, structural characterisation)
- Capillary flow porometry
- Optical Microscopy
- Electron Microscopy (SEM, ESEM, FEGSEM, TEM)
- X-ray Microtomography (XMT)
- Liquid transport, wicking and absorbency analysis
- Wetting - Goniometry and tensiometry
- X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS)
- Interferometry
Chemical, thermal & electrical properties
- UV/Visible/NIR spectrophotometer
- NMR and Raman Spectroscopy
- Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)
- Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)
- Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA)
- Electrostatic properties
- HPLC, UHPLC
Physical testing facilities for fibres, yarns and fabrics
- Yarn and fabric dimensions
- Tensile testing (inc. tear, compression, burst, thickness, delamination, friction)
- Burst testing (diaphragm)
- Tear testing
- Air permeability
- Pilling
- Abrasion
- Dimensional stability
- Handle and flexural rigidity (Kawabata, FAST)
- Crease recovery
- Drape Frictional properties
- Areal density
- Flushability
- Menstrual Tampons Absorbency – Syngina Method