The history of spandex fiber
History of spandex fiber
Spandex fiber is an elastomeric fiber which means it has quality and elasticity like rubber. The elasticity of this fiber is very high quality. The elastomeric word comes from the two words one is Elastic and another is Polymer. We got this fiber from elastomeric polymer so it is called elastomeric fiber. Spandex can be expanded 5-7 times its own length. And after releasing its load it can come to its own length. As per FTC, " Spandex fiber is a manufactured elastomeric fiber in which the fiber-forming substance is a long chain polymer consisting of at least 85% segmented polyurethane. "
Chemically it is a polymer of urethane(-NH-COO-) . This is 100% synthetic fiber. The density of elastomeric fiber is 1 gram/cc. This is very light weight so that we can use to make underwear garments.
In the past times, rubber was used as the elastic fiber in the textile sector. To make yarn from rubber it was needed to be cut as sheets. Then process development help to dissolve rubber and then can make yarn. That time it was used as a core inside the cotton or other types of yarn. Then this yarn was named as latex. This yarn was limited in world. These are heavyweight, and if we dye the fabric then the fabric can not be able to absorb dyes well. If also it absorbs dyes but if we stretch then it also showed the fiber color. In 1947 Herbarlien patent corp. produced a yarn which was and named Helenka. But this yarn also does not have enough elasticity because it wasn't able to make crimp, coil, and curve. Also, there was not enough elasticity. It was more elastic than rubber in rating 0.25 to 0.50 % more elastic than rubber.
In 1947 Dupont company produced an elastomeric yarn as per their invention. They named this fiber unique name K. For some experiments and user experience they started to sell this yarn in 1958. After that, they collect results from users and changed the K fiber name and again named Lycra. Then spandex fiber was produced in huge production as Lycra trademark in 1962.
Day by day it was increasing the demand for spandex fiber and then The Globe Manufacturing company take a plan to produce spandex yarn commercially and produced Glaspan spandex in 1963.