Unique blends of fibers that incorporate synthetic cellulosic fibers to render fabrics made with such blends more durable than fabrics made with natural cellulosic fibers such as cotton. While more durable than cotton, the synthetic cellulosic fibers used in the blends are still inexpensive and comfortable to the wearer. Thus, the benefits of cotton (affordability and comfort) are still attained while a drawback of cotton—low durability—is avoided. In one embodiment, the fiber blend includes FR modacrylic fibers and synthetic cellulosic fibers, preferably, but not necessarily non-FR lyocell fibers such as TENCEL™ and TENCEL A100™. Other fibers may be added to the blend, including, but not limited to, additional types of inherently FR fibers, anti-static fibers, anti-microbial fibers, stretch fibers, and/or high tenacity fibers. The fiber blends disclosed herein may be used to form various types of FR fabrics. Desired colors may be imparted in a variety of ways and with a variety of dyes to the fabrics disclosed herein. Fabrics having the fibers blends disclosed herein can be used to construct the entirety of, or various portions of, a variety of protective garments for protecting the wearer against electrical arc flash and flames, including, but not limited to, coveralls, jumpsuits, shirts, jackets, vests, and trousers.

Yarns including an elastomeric filament and fabrics including elastomeric filaments are described herein. A yarn may comprise an elastomeric filament and a blend of fibers, the blend of fibers comprising modacrylic fibers, meta-aramid fibers, anti-static fibers, and/or para-aramid fibers.

Yarns and fabrics that include modacrylic fibers are described herein. A yarn and/or fabric may include modacrylic fibers, meta-aramid fibers, anti-static fibers, and optionally para-aramid fibers. In some embodiments, the modacrylic fibers, meta-aramid fibers, and, if present, para-aramid fibers, may each be fiber dyed, optionally solution-dyed.

An arc resistant fabric containing a plurality of first yarns disposed in a first direction in the fabric and a plurality of second yarns disposed in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction forming a woven pattern. The first and second yarns contain non-FR cellulosic fibers, modacrylic fibers, and aramid fibers intimately blended together. The woven fabric has a sateen weave. The arc resistant fabric has a weight less than about 6 oz/yd.sup.2, an arc thermal protective value (atpv) of least about 8.0 cal/cm.sup.2, and a greater thickness than a fabric using the same yarns in a plain weave.

A cloth for mattress including a knitted fabric that is knitted from blended yarns contains flame retardant rayon fibers, modacrylic fibers, polyimide fibers, and low-melting polyester fibers. The cloth for mattress can be obtained by producing blended yarns containing the flame retardant rayon fibers, the modacrylic fibers, the polyimide fibers, and the low-melting polyester fibers, and producing a knitted fabric by knitting the blended yarns. The cloth for mattress has excellent flame retardancy, ensures easy handling when used to cover a mattress, is resistant to pilling without reducing the strength of the blended yarns, and is also safe for contact with the human body.

Systems, methods, and structures that provide distributed acoustic sensing using chirped optical pulses of selectable duration and bandwidth, at a frame rate limited by a round-trip propagation time of a fiber under test. Instead of processing a transmitted chirped pulse as a single sequence—our systems, methods, and structures employ a parallel fragmented multiband architecture, where each tributary correlates the received signal with a truncated chirped pulse to obtain the Rayleigh impulse response over its frequency band. By reducing the duration of the chirp processed by each tributary, spatial leakage is reduced at all the tributaries, thus even after combining all the interferometric products from all tributaries using a rotated vector sum, the resultant signal is much less impacted by spatial leakage than by using a conventional TGD-OFDR method.

Flame resistant fabrics formed with a combination of body yarns and stretch yarns that exhibit excellent physical and thermal properties. The body yarns are formed at least in part with flame resistant materials. The stretch yarns are corespun yarns having an elastic core surrounded by a fiber sheath formed at least in part with flame resistant materials. The fiber sheath protects the elastic core from direct exposure to heat and flame that would otherwise cause the core to degrade or melt.

Flame resistant fabrics formed with fiber blends that provide the requisite flame and thermal protection but that have improved durability. In some embodiments this is accomplished with the use of fiber blends that include relatively large percentages of FR nylon fibers in combination with cellulosic and inherently flame resistant fibers.

A fabric for use in arc and flame protection, and a process for producing a fire resistant fabric are provided. The fabric includes at least 70 wt % aramid fiber; less than 40 wt % modacrylic; 8 wt % nylon; and 2 wt % anti-static. The process includes shredding recycled fire resistant garments into fibers; creating yarn from the shredded fibers; weaving the yarn into fabric; and knitting the yarn to produce new garments. The fabric may be used to produce fire-resistant garments worn by workers in many industries such as the oil and gas.

Described herein are high visibility yarns and fabrics along with methods and making and using the same.