CCT Carpet Fiber Identification & Construction 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which burn test result indicates a nylon fiber?
- Burns quickly with black smoke and leaves hard ash
- Melts and shrinks from flame, smells like burning hair
- Melts and fuses, self-extinguishes, smells like celery (Correct answer)
- Burns steadily with gray ash and smells like burning paper
Correct answer: Melts and fuses, self-extinguishes, smells like celery
Nylon melts and fuses rather than burning freely, self-extinguishes when removed from flame, and produces a celery-like odor.
Question 2: What distinguishes a Saxony cut pile from a frieze cut pile carpet?
- Saxony has looped ends while frieze has cut ends
- Saxony has long twisted yarns while frieze has short straight yarns
- Saxony has short, even, upright tufts while frieze has long, highly twisted yarns (Correct answer)
- Saxony is always made of wool while frieze is always synthetic
Correct answer: Saxony has short, even, upright tufts while frieze has long, highly twisted yarns
Saxony features short, dense, upright cut pile tufts for a formal look, while frieze has long, highly twisted yarns that curl and hide footprints.
Question 3: A carpet fiber that glows under UV light most likely contains which material?
- Wool
- Cotton
- Optical brighteners added to nylon or polyester (Correct answer)
- Polypropylene (olefin)
Correct answer: Optical brighteners added to nylon or polyester
Optical brighteners added to synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester cause them to fluoresce under ultraviolet (black) light.
Question 4: What is the primary advantage of solution-dyed polypropylene (olefin) carpet?
- Superior resilience and crush resistance
- Excellent bleach resistance and colorfastness (Correct answer)
- Softness comparable to wool
- High resistance to static electricity
Correct answer: Excellent bleach resistance and colorfastness
Solution-dyeing means the color is built into the fiber during manufacture, making polypropylene highly resistant to bleach and UV fading.
Question 5: Which carpet construction type is most likely to exhibit 'pile reversal' or 'shading'?
- Loop pile (Berber)
- Cut pile velvet/plush (Correct answer)
- Needle-punch
- Woven flatweave
Correct answer: Cut pile velvet/plush
Cut pile velvet and plush carpets are most prone to pile reversal (shading/pooling) because the upright fibers can lay in different directions reflecting light unevenly.
Question 6: What does the term 'denier' refer to in carpet fiber specifications?
- The number of fiber twists per inch
- The weight of fiber per unit length (fiber thickness) (Correct answer)
- The percentage of recycled content in the yarn
- The heat resistance rating of the fiber
Correct answer: The weight of fiber per unit length (fiber thickness)
Denier is a unit measuring fiber fineness—the weight in grams of 9,000 meters of a single fiber—with higher denier indicating a thicker, heavier fiber.
Question 7: When performing a burn test, wool fiber produces an ash that is:
- Hard, bead-like, and black
- Crusty, easily crushable, and smells like burning hair (Correct answer)
- White and powdery with no odor
- Clear and melts into a plastic blob
Correct answer: Crusty, easily crushable, and smells like burning hair
Wool burns slowly, smells strongly of burning hair (keratin protein), and leaves a crushable, irregular dark ash.
CCT Carpet Fiber Identification & Construction 2
Which burn test result indicates a nylon fiber?