The effect of cyclic wrinkling on the durability of waterproof breathable functional outdoor materials for sportswear

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to analyze the resistance of high-tech sportswear fabrics (especially laminated fabrics with membranes) to moisture management after the simulation of real wear. Therefore, a new device, cyclic wrinkle recovery tester (CWR Tester), was designed and constructed. The device simulates the wrinkling behavior of textiles during wearing by repeated both twisting and compression strain. The nine waterproof materials (five samples of three-layer structure and three samples of two-layer version of waterproof textiles and one softshell) were tested before and after cyclic wrinkling processes in order to find out the level of their hydrostatic resistance (HR) and water vapor resistance (Ret). To find out the performance of these high-tech materials, the range of loading cycles from 1,000 to 20,000 was applied within the tests by CWR Tester. In summary, a significant decrease in the hydrostatic resistance of the tested three-layer and two-layer structure of waterproof textiles (up to 90% from the original level of HR) was shown after cyclic wrinkling. Further, a slight decrease in water vapor resistance was noticed (a maximum of 7%). It may be explained by the fact that the membrane in the tested samples was partially damaged via cycling loading, as having been shown by the scanning electron microscopy images.