Ring Spinning is the oldest of the present day spinning processes. Fiber material is supplied to the ring-spinning machine in the form of roving. The fiber mass of the roving is reduced by a drafting unit. The twist inserted moves backwards and reaches the fibers leaving the drafting unit. The fibers lay around one another in concentric helical paths. The normal forces encountered by the fibers enhance the adhesive forces between the fibers and prevent fibers from flying or slipping past each other under the tensile strain.
It is the process of further drawing out roving to the final yarn count needed, inserting twist to the fibres by means of a rotating spindle and winding the yarn on a bobbin. These three stages take place simultaneously and continuously.
A mechanically driven spindle, on which the yarn package firmly sits, is responsible for twist. A stationary ring is around the spindle, which holds the traveler. Yarn from the drafting unit is drawn under the traveler, and then led to the yarn package. In order to wind the twisted yarn on a bobbin tube carried by the spindle, the traveler is required to cooperate with the spindle. The traveler moves on the ring without any physical drive, but is carried along by the yarn it is threaded with. The rotation rate of traveler is lower than the spindle, and this difference in the speeds of traveler and the spindle enables the winding of the yarn on the tube. A controlled up and down movement of the ring determines the shape of the yarn package, called Cop or Bobbin. Ring spinning technology provides the widest range in terms of the yarn counts it can produce.
Ring spinning is a comparatively expensive process because of its slower production speeds and the additional processes (roving and winding) required for producing ring spun yarns. Ring spun yarns produce high quality and are mainly produced in the fine (60 Ne, 10 tex) to medium count (30 Ne, 20 tex) range, with a small amount produced in the coarse count (10 Ne, 60 tex) range. End uses include high quality underwear, shirting, towels.The fibers in the ring yarn are highly parallel and helical in nature, and the fiber arrangement is uniform along the thickness of the yarn. The yarn has a compact structure, with essentially no wrapper or hooked fibers. The self-locked structure is the result of intensive fiber migration, which in turn is influenced by the triangular geometry of the spinning zone and the high spinning tensions. The high axial strength of the yarn is the result of unique self-locked structure.