Donald L. Bailey, Cotton Incorporated
In textile production, one of the most common and perplexing quality issues is “barré.” The factors that can cause or contribute to barré are varied and diverse. For this reason, when a barré problem is detected, the skills of a sleuth may be required to expose the problem and eliminate its cause. Once a cause is identified, steps can be taken to minimize or eliminate the barré, and better quality fabrics can be produced. This discussion will center on knitted fabrics.
DISCUSSIONS
The noun “barré” is defined by ASTM1 as an unintentional, repetitive visual pattern of continuous bars and stripes usually parallel to the filling of woven fabric or to the courses of circular knitted fabric. In a warp knit, barré normally runs in the length direction, following the direction of yarn flow. Barré can be caused by physical, optical, dye related differences in the yarn, geometric differences in the fabric structure, or by any combination of these differences. A barré streak can be one or several courses wide. A “typical” characteristic of barré is that it generally consists of stripes that repeat. Isolated or intermittent defects may or may not be barré.
