Study on microclimate conditions for woven fabrics from cotton-acrylic bulked yarn

Abstract

The present work is concerned with the study of the microclimate conditions with plain woven fabrics produced with cotton-acrylic high-bulk yarns. Cotton-acrylic bulked yarns of various yarn counts, proportion of shrinkable acrylic fibre and twist levels have been prepared as per the three-variable three-level factorial design technique proposed by Box and Behnken to study the interaction effects of the variables on the microclimate conditions. The influence of these three variables on various microclimate conditions i.e. initial increase in microclimate temperature and relative humidity without air flow and drop in microclimate temperature and relative humidity when air flows at 1.12 m/s through the outer surface of fabrics. The response surface equations for all the microclimate parameters have been derived and the contour plots were obtained to analyse the interactive effect of all the variables on microclimate parameters. These bulked fabrics show higher initial increase in microclimate temperature without air flow and lower drop in microclimate temperature with air flow as compared to equivalent 100% cotton fabrics. All the variables were found to have significant effects on microclimate parameters.