B.K. Behera

Comfort Properties of Fabrics Woven from Ring-, Rotor-, and Friction-spun Yarns

Fabrics woven from ring-, rotor-, and friction-spun yarns, have been compared from the standpoint of comfort. Emphasis has been placed on the tactile and thermal aspects of comfort by the use of the Kawabata Fabric Evaluation System. The effect of the weave on the comfort aspects of the fabric has also been studied. Although ring-spun yarn has been found to be the best yarn from the tactile comfort point of view and friction-spun yarn has been found most suitable from the standpoint of thermal comfort, fabrics woven from friction-spun yarns do tend to bag during usage. Ring- and rotor-spun yarns are comparable from the thermal comfort aspect, the rotor-spun yarn being slightly better. A twill-woven fabric has been found preferable to a plain-woven fabric in all aspects of comfort.

Sewability of denim

Denim fabrics of various weight ranges were sewn with three different compositions of sewing threads ‐ 100 per cent cotton, 100 per cent polyester and corespun thread ‐ with all possible ticket numbers, to examine the interaction of various fabric‐thread combinations. The sewing thread performance in terms of seam efficiency, pucker, slippage and needle cutting index was determined and the results were analysed in the light of the dimensional and mechanical properties of the fabric, thread and seam itself. Corespun threads were found to be most suitable from a seam efficiency point of view. However, other sewing parameters such as pucker, slippage and damage were adversely affected by sewing with corespun threads. Tensile properties of fabrics and threads were found to be the most important factors for sewability. Breaking strength and elongation of the fabric and sewing thread had an excellent correlation with seam efficiency. Cotton threads were found to be most suitable for sewing denim from a seam puckering point of view. On the other hand, polyester threads were more prone to develop seam pucker. Corespun thread was the greatest yarn damager compared to cotton and polyester threads. Fabric cover factor and sewing thread diameter were highly correlated with the needle cutting index.

Objective measurement of fabric appearance using digital image processing

Abstract Fabric appearance is very essential for characterizing and determining the acceptability of textile products. Drape, pilling, texture and wrinkle are recognized as major aesthetic attributes of a woven apparel fabric and measured by the digital image processing technique. An integrated appearance index is estimated from these attributes after judiciously evaluating the weightage of individual parameter with an expert opinion. It has a good correlation with some of the existing subjective methods of analysing fabric appearance.

Artificial neural network‐based prediction of aesthetic and functional properties of worsted suiting fabrics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate an alternative approach that can predict non‐linear relations.Design/methodology/approach – An engineered approach to fabric development is described in which a radial basis function network is trained with worsted fabric constructional parameters to predict functional and aesthetic properties of fabrics. An objective method of fabric appearance evaluation with the help of digital image processing is introduced. The prediction of fabric properties by the network with changing basic fibre characteristics and fabric constructional parameters is found to have good correlation with the experimental values of fabric functional and aesthetic properties.Findings – The radial basis function network can successfully predict the fabric functional and aesthetic properties from basic fibre characteristics and fabric constructional parameters with considerable accuracy. The network prediction is in good correlation with the actual experimental data. There is some e...

Surgical Gown: A Critical Review

With increasing awareness about the highly communicable bacteria and viruses, medical professionals and associations are making it mandatory to use protective surgical gowns to barrier the spreading of various diseases like SARS, HIV, hepatitis, etc. These diseases, which may be caused by a variety of microorganisms, can pose significant risks to human life and health unless sufficient measures are taken. Are medical professionals really feeling safe with existing surgical gowns prevalent in the market? Do these gowns provide absolute barrier to viruses along with providing comfort? Can we rely on the performance or is there something else we need to understand and modify? This article reveals some facts pertaining to these questions and precisely highlights various issues related to the development, application, and quality evaluation of surgical gowns. It also deals with the types of gowns available, their classification, technology behind them, technical aspects, testing means, their limitations, and future course of action to satisfy the growing needs of our health care professionals.

Objective measurement of pilling by image processing technique

Purpose – This paper aims to report on a new pilling measurement system that has been developed using image processing technique.Design/methodology/approach – A pilling assessment cabinet is designed and developed which captures images and a software is developed to process and analyze the image of a pilled fabric to find out the various pilling parameters such as total number of pills, total area of the pills, mean area and number of pills per unit area. The image processing software processed image data of both the existing subjective assessment standards and pilled fabrics and assign suitable grades for comparison.Findings – The grades assigned by the machine correlates well with that of the experts grades and the results are reliably reproducible. The system can count the number of pills, find their total area, and their mean area. The results of EMPA‐W2 and EMPA‐W3 standards behave almost similar. The ASTM standards also gives somewhat the same results as the EMPA standards in number of pills but has...

Modeling of internal geometry of 3D woven fabrics by computation method

This article enumerates a two-phase modeling technique to predict the properties of 3D woven structures. The first phase is devoted to the cross-section modeling of tows, the output of which is utilized in modeling of fabric internal geometry. The output of the modeling helps to predict internal geometry of various 3D constructions for design and development of textile structural composites. An analytical method for calculating the geometric description of the composite unit cell based on the summation of volumes of tows in the three principal directions is presented. The cross-sectional shape and aspect ratio of the stuffer, filler, and binder tows have been taken into consideration. The second phase of the model enables to play with yarn linear density, thread density, number of tow layers, binding structure, and packing factor of tows for predicting areal density, thickness, and volume fraction of the preform fabric before actually manufacturing it. Both the models compute the output values on MATLAB R2010b platform and it has been found that calculated values are in good agreement with measured values.

Novelties of 3-D woven composites and nanocomposites

This research is aimed to investigate the mechanical behaviour of 3-D woven fabrics as compared to 2-D woven fabrics and subsequently to check its suitability for composite applications. Mechanical tests especially related to ballistic protection of these fabrics were carried out to see the effect of fabric structure on its mechanical properties. The tensile test showed higher strength for 3-D fabrics as compared to 2-D fabrics. Improvement in the breaking load and energy absorption of 3-D fabrics was also observed in the impact test. Furthermore, applicability of 2-D and 3-D glass woven fabrics for composites was also studied in this work. An exploratory work has been carried out in the field of three phase composite in which fly ash nanoparticles were incorporated in addition with glass fabrics while preparing composites. These fly ash nanoparticles were prepared by high-energy ball milling technique and its effects on mechanical properties of composites were observed. Three-point bending flexural test showed higher flexural strength and modulus of 3-D woven composite and addition of nanoparticles further enhanced the properties of composites. Impact test analysis revealed that the 3-D woven glass fabric/epoxy composites exhibit superior breaking load and total energy than those with 2-D plain woven fabric as reinforcement.

Modelling and simulation of 3D orthogonal fabrics for composite applications

The present paper focuses on geometric and micromechanical modelling of 3D orthogonal fabrics for composite applications and employs meso-finite element (FE) modelling for it. FE modelling of textile composites is a powerful tool for the homogenisation of mechanical properties, study of stress–strain fields inside the unit cell, determination of damage initiation conditions and sites and simulation of damage development and associated deterioration of the homogenised mechanical properties of the composite. Meso-FE can be considered as a part of the micro-meso–macro-multi-level modelling process, with micromodels (fibres in the matrix) providing material properties for homogenised impregnated yarns and fibrous plies, and macromodel (structural analysis) using results of meso-homogenisation.

Novelty of bamboo fabric

Fabric samples using 100% cotton, 100% viscose rayon, 100% regenerated bamboo viscose fibre and cotton/bamboo viscose blend (60/40) were produced and characterised for hand value and health care applications. The present study shows the results of these woven fabrics in terms of antibacterial, absorbency, ultraviolet protection factor (UPF), static characteristics, moisture vapour permeability (MVTR) and handle and dust catchability. Bamboo fabrics (100%) give better results compared to 100% cotton and 100% viscose fabric in terms of antibacterial property and absorbency i.e. wettability. Bamboo fabric (100%) also shows slightly higher moisture vapour transmission rate than cotton fabric. In the case of UPF, 100% cotton and 100% bamboo give excellent-rated UPF. There is no significant difference between these fabric samples in terms of time to lapse half saturated voltage. Total hand value is higher in the case of viscose and bamboo fabric than cotton fabric. The studies also show that breaking load and extension of bamboo gauze bandages are higher than cotton bandages. Sinking time is faster but absorptive capacity is lower in the case of bamboo gauze bandage than cotton gauze bandage.