Abstract
Why is it possible to distinguish between different textile fabrics by just touching them and moving your hand over them and listening to the sound? Particularly for high-quality woven fabrics, e.g. used for tailor-made suits, it is quite common that the dressmaker listens to the sound as their hand rubs the fabric. Can this approach be translated into a technical measurement? What could a sound analysis tell us about the fabric properties? As a first simple approach, we used a record player to rotate different cotton fabrics, and tested fine tips from diverse materials, such as plastic pipettes, pens, glass tips, etc. Our results show clear differences between the textile fabrics, which can be attributed to different yarn, knitted or woven structures. While the rotational mode of investigation impedes fully automated fast Fourier transform (FFT) evaluations, our first results suggest de¬veloping this promising method further.
Highlights
Textile fabrics are often used for sound absorption or acoustic insulation and investigated for this purpose by many research groups [1−5]
Why is it possible to distinguish between different textile fabrics by just touching them and moving your hand over them and listening to the sound? for high-quality woven fabrics, e.g. used for tailor-made suits, it is quite common that the dressmaker listens to the sound as their hand rubs the fabric
Can this approach be translated into a technical measurement? What could a sound analysis tell us about the fabric properties? As a first simple approach, we used a record player to rotate different cotton fabrics, and tested fine tips from diverse materials, such as plastic pipettes, pens, glass tips, etc
Summary
Textile fabrics are often used for sound absorption or acoustic insulation and investigated for this purpose by many research groups [1−5]. Some groups work on developing acoustic sensors embedded in yarns or fabrics [6]. Recently has the issue been addressed whether acoustic investigations of textile fabrics, i.e. performing an analysis of the sound created by frictional movement along their surfaces [7, 8], could reveal information about the fabrics. Wang et al studied the friction sounds created by woven fabrics from natural fibres rubbing on each other and found frequency-dependent loudness, averaging over time [9]. Loudness was the parameter investigated in some other studies, e.g. by Yi and Cho, examining different woven fabrics [10, 11].
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