Artificial Fibers

Investigation of a crime or accident scene involves the collection of evidence. This collection must be scrupulous; every piece of evidence is important in deciphering the course of events, identifying the victim, and in implicating a suspect.

One piece of evidence that can be important is fibers; the material that makes up clothing and other material. Even wigs may be comprised of fibers.

Fibers can be made of a natural material (i.e., wool) or a synthetic compound or blend. The differentiation of these fibers types can be important. For example, if a suspect was wearing rayon trousers, then it would be of interest to determine if the fibers found at the scene were rayon.

Most synthetic fibers are polymer-based, and are produced by a process known as spinning. This process involves extrusion of a polymeric liquid through fine holes known as spinnerets. After the liquid has been spun, the resulting fibers are oriented by stretching or drawing out of the fibers. This increases the polymeric chain orientation and degree of crystallinity, and has the effect of increasing the modulus and tensile strength of the fibers.

Fiber manufacture is classified according to the type of spinning that the polymer liquid undergoes: melt spinning, dry spinning, or wet spinning.

Melt spinning is the simplest of these three methods, but it requires that the polymer constituent be stable above its melting temperature. In melt spinning, the polymer is melted and forced through the spinnerets, which may contain from 50 to 500 holes. The diameter of the fiber immediately following extrusion exceeds the hole diameter. During the cooling process, the fiber is drawn to induce orientation. Further orientation may later be achieved by stretching the fiber to what is known as a higher draw ratio.

Melt spinning is used with polymers such as nylon, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, cellulose triacetate, and polyethylene terephthalate, and in the multifilament extrusion of polypropylene.

In dry spinning, the polymer is first dissolved in a solvent. The polymer solution is extruded through the spinnerets. The solvent is evaporated with hot air and collected for reuse. The fiber then passes over rollers, and is stretched to orient the molecules and increase the fiber strength. Cellulose acetate, cellulose triacetate, acrylic, modacrylic, aromatic nylon, and polyvinyl chloride are made by dry spinning.

In wet spinning, the polymer solution is spun into a coagulating solution to precipitate the polymer. This process has been used with acrylic, modacrylic, aromatic nylon, and polyvinyl chloride fibers. Viscose rayon is produced from regenerated cellulose by a wet spinning technique.

In a forensic examination, fibers are most easily collected using adhesive tape. The collected fibers are separated based on color and other appearance characteristics (i.e., wooly versus string-like).

Forensic analysis of fibers is conducted in several ways. Synthetic fiber polymers can be suited to examination using infrared spectroscopy. Specified guidelines exist for this type of examination, which makes the technique standard and so more easily legally admissible.

The constituents of the dye that has been used to color fibers can be separated using chromatography, which can separate compounds based on differences of size or charge.

Artificial fibers can also act as lenses, by virtue of the drawing out process of manufacture. Based on the optical properties of a fiber, shining a light on it will either focus the light towards the center or the edge of the fiber. This can aid in identifying the nature of a fiber sample.

SEE ALSO Crime scene investigation; Evidence; Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FTIR).