FTT comfort indices of ring-spun and air-jet knitted fabrics with post-treatments

Abstract

The Fabric Touch Tester (FTT) is a relatively new instrument that simultaneously measures several fabric indices and subsequently compute from them primary and global comfort indices (fabric total touch and total feel). The main aim of this research was to investigate the ability of the FTT to discriminate between primary comfort indices of fabrics differentiated by yarn type (i.e. ring-spun yarns and air-jet yarns) and finishing treatments.Polyester-cotton knitted fabrics were produced and their FTT-predicted primary comfort indices (i.e. smoothness, softness and warmth) were compared with those of the finished knits (i.e. dyed and dyed with softening treatments). For the considered fabrics, it was fond that the type of yarn did not lead to statistically significant different comfort indices. Nevertheless, significant differences were found between the comfort indices of the untreated fabrics and the fabrics dyed and treated with a softener regardless the type of yarn. The findings are in line with similar findings from literature where other instruments were used. These first results suggest that FTT is a promising tool that is able to distinguish between samples with small differences induced by finishing treatments.