Crystallite orientation in wool fibers

✍ Scribed by D. Rama Rao; V. B. Gupta

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 454 KB
• Volume: 46
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/app.1992.070460620

✦ Synopsis

The main features of the wide angle X-ray patterns in wool are': meridional a-arc associated with group of reflections at about 0.51 nm (28 = 17.8"), the equatorial spot at 0.465 nm (28 = 19" ) associated with @-form, and the equatorial spot at 0.98 nm (28 = 9") common to both a-and @-forms. The various reflections observed in the X-ray patterns indicate good crystallite orientation in the direction of fiber axis.

Wools of different biological origin are known to show differences in their properties, which, in turn, are related to differences in the structure and morph~logy.~-~ The birefringence values of three different wools, namely Merino, Chokla, and Lincoln, have been shown to correlate well with their morphology and various physical pr0perties.3.~ Birefringence in wool arises predominantly from its crystallites, and their orientation is therefore of considerable interest. However, there is hardly any reported study on the changes in crystallite orientation as related to such differences. In the present work, the X-ray diffraction technique was used to characterize crystallite orientation in these wool fibers stretched to different degrees.