Definition
Carding is a mechanical preparation process in spinning preparation in which textile fibers are opened, cleaned, parallelized, and formed into a uniform fiber web or sliver (known as the card sliver) by rollers covered with needles or teeth. The carding machine consists of a large main roller (cylinder) and several smaller worker and stripper rollers whose co-directional or counter-directional rotation individualizes and aligns the fibers. Unlike in cotton spinning — where this process is referred to as carding as well but is associated with the cotton card — the German term "Krempeln" is used in wool and man-made fiber processing and designates a technically related principle. The result is a loose, flat fiber assembly that can subsequently be spun into yarn, consolidated into a nonwoven, or further processed.
Use in the textile industry
Carding (in the woolen sense) is used in woolen spinning, semi-worsted spinning, and nonwoven manufacturing, where it prepares raw fibers of various origins — including virgin wool, reprocessed fibers, and man-made fibers — for further processing. In the nonwoven industry, the card is a central piece of equipment, since the produced fiber web can be directly consolidated into a flat product by needlepunching, hydroentanglement, or thermal bonding. Compared to carding in cotton spinning, woolen carding technology is typically designed for longer, coarser, or more highly crimped fibers and operates with correspondingly adapted clothing geometries.
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