Fabric handling evaluation of woven shirting fabrics by the fabric touch tester

Abstract

A fabric touch tester is a novel instrument with fabric handling properties. Its principal advantage is that the device has integrated modules for compression, surface friction, and thermal and bending properties. This module integration simplifies the testing process, and provides an efficient measurement method, and a comprehensive physical index. This study focused on woven fabrics for dress shirts. The fabric samples comprised three groups with various yarn compositions – that is, cotton, polyester, and wool. Sample group 1 was composed of cotton, polyester, and blended yarns; sample group 2 mainly compared the effect of twist yarns on the fabric touch; and sample group 3 was composed of wool and blended yarns with polyester. The handling properties were assessed by compression work and the compression recovery rate for the compression attributes. The results revealed that fabric (T100p1) with high twist-level yarns had a higher value of compression work (242.56 gf*mm2), and the texture type may affect the compression characteristics more significantly than the blending ratio. The fabric touch tester can also distinguish small changes in the compression properties of samples (0.43–0.71), the maximum heat flux and surface roughness amplitude for the thermal and surface roughness properties. The results revealed that the maximum heat flux value of all the samples in this study was 1109 Wm−2, the sample C100 using pure cotton yarn had the highest maximum heat flux value (1270 Wm−2). Moreover, the sample W100 with 100% wool fiber yarn had the highest surface roughness amplitude in the warp direction (81 μm) and surface roughness amplitude in the weft direction (67 μm). Finally, the bending average rigidity was used to assess the bending performance of the fabric samples. These fabric touch tester indicators were applied to analyze the fabric handling characteristics of woven shirting fabrics, and perform cross-analysis among samples.