What is Flat Yarn and What are the Drawbacks of Flat Yarns?

What is Flat Yarn?

In flat-filament yarns, each filament is almost perfectly straight, so that it lies flat and smooth in the yarn.

​What are the Drawbacks of Flat Yarns?

• ​Flat yarns tend to be the most compact and smooth of all types of yarns​.
• ​Flat yarns slip on the skin due to a slippery surface that leads to discomfort for the wearer​.
• ​Flat yarns have poor moisture regain.
• Flat yarn tends to generate a static charge when rubbed against the skin, which results in discomfort​.
• ​Static charges generated on garments attract dirt and dust from the atmosphere and make the garment dirty, this also results in discomfort​.
• ​Flat yarns have poor dimensional stability, which leads to a reduction in the size of a garment​.
• A smooth surface, poor moisture regains, and poor dimensional stability are the drawbacks of flat yarns​. ​So, the wearer of flat yarn garments always feels discomfort and is avoided.​
• ​The person wears these garments with a lot of discomfort and these yarns are not popular​.

Comparison with Spun Yarn

• The manufacturers of filament yarns thought that if these drawbacks were overcome then filament yarns would become popular like spun yarns​.
• ​Spun yarn apparel is more comfortable because they do not slip on the skin and have very good moisture absorption.​
• ​The spun yarn surface is not smooth and slippery due to the zig-zag arrangement of fibres in the yarn.​
• Spun yarns are not compact like flat yarns and there is space between fibres​.
• Air packets are created in these gaps and air pockets hold the moisture in yarn.
• Spun yarns have these comfortable properties due to the structure of the yarn (zig-zag arrangement of fibres)​.
• If flat yarn structure is also converted like spun yarns, then the comfort level of flat yarn apparel improves​.
• Therefore, the filaments in the yarns should be arranged in zig zag manner instead of straight, then the filament yarns structure will be like spun yarn structure and draw backs of filament yarns can be overcome.​
• ​This filament yarns with zig zag (crimpy, curly, loopy etc.) arrangement of filaments is known as Textured yarn​