Abstract
The pore size is one of the vital morphological characteristics of barrier fabrics as it decisively affects their permeability and retention properties. Apart from fabric construction and material aspects, the pore size also depends on applied mechanical loads, which occur during typical usage life cycles. Among others, barrier fabrics such as surgical gowns are exposed to loads during their use. These loads have a significant effect on the fabric morphology which influences the permeability properties as well. In this study, a newly developed in situ pore size measurement method was used to measure the changes in pore size that occur in high density barrier woven fabrics under biaxial loadings and after cyclic loading. It was observed that, under tension, pore size distributions changed and mean flow pore sizes increased. Results revealed that the developed in situ measurement method has a great potential for the determination of pore size changes in barrier textiles under biaxial loading.
Highlights
Surgical gowns can be manufactured from nonwovens, woven fabrics and trilaminates as hybrid systems to attain the required protection and comfort [1]
Larger inter-yarn pores in the plain woven fabrics resulted in more enlarged pores after biaxial loading according to comparisons between samples 2, 5 and 6
Based on the promising approach of liquid displacement methods, a novel and unique non-destructive in situ method for continuous analysing of the changes in pore size deformations of high density barrier fabrics under biaxial loading was developed within the presented research work
Summary
Several technical applications require textile structures that offer a combination of definite permeability and retention properties. Surgical gowns and draping materials require forementioned contradictory characteristics to keep the wearer comfortable and simultaneously provide a barrier against particle-loaded fluids. Several processing and fabric construction factors and yarn parameters define the permeability and pore morphology of woven fabrics [7]. By use of these construction parameters theoretical and analytical air permeability models were developed and the effect of these parameters on permeability properties were discussed in several studies [8-12]. It was found that surgical gowns are subjected to quasistatic and cyclic loads These textiles were loaded by tension, pressure, shear and friction loads. As a result of these multifaceted mechanical forces occurring during the daily use of protective textiles, the morphological characteristics of the woven fabric will change [16]
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