Tactile aspects of clothing comfort
4.4 Fabric parameters affecting tactile sensation
Fabric roughness and scratchiness are the important characteristics which directly affect the tactile sensation of clothing. It has been reported [2]
that the sensation of roughness correlated with fabric surface roughness characteristics (frictional force, mean surface roughness coefficient, and deviation of surface roughness coefficient), compressional characteristics of fabrics (compressibility and compressional energy), fibre diameter, tensile characteristics of fibre (breaking load and breaking elongation), and tensile characteristics of fabric (breaking elongation, elastic recovery).
The sensation of scratchiness, on the other hand, is related to fabric tensile characteristics (breaking elongation, work of rupture and the modulus), fabric surface roughness (frictional force, mean surface roughness coefficient, and deviation of surface roughness coefficient), compressional characteristics of fabrics (compressibility, linearity of the compression curve, compressional energy and slope of the compression-thickness curve).
In a study on roughness sensation of woven and knitted fabrics made from nylon monofilaments of different diameters [52], it has been reported that the perception of roughness increases with the increase in filament diameter and knitted fabric is rougher than the woven fabric made from the same diameter filament (Fig. 4.18).
It has been reported that prickle sensation of fabric is directly correlated with fibre diameter, fabric thickness at low loading, and fabric surface roughness [53]. It has also been reported [54] that the prickle sensation of the fabrics could be predicted from the density of coarse fibre ends per unit area of fabric and the variations in diameter distribution in individual fibre mass, especially the percentage of coarse fibre ends, influence the fabric prickle sensation significantly.
Fabric warmness and heaviness also cause discomfort. The rating of the tactile sensation of heaviness alone is very low. Since heaviness is related to warmness, the two sensations have been combined by Mehrtens and McAlister [14]. They have reported that warmness might be more dependent on fabric thickness than on weight, and that heaviness might be more dependent on weight than on thickness. It has been reported that the product of fabric weight and fabric thickness was a better objective measurement for correlation with warmness and heaviness than either weight or thickness alone [14].
The tactile comfort sensations can be greatly improved by different types of finishing treatments at fabric as well as in the garment stage. There are many finishing treatments, namely silicon finish, nano-finish, brushing, etc., for improvement of tactile sensation of fabrics. It may be said that
“cloth is made in the finishing”. The treatments are performed on fabrics with the help of chemical or mechanical treatments at the last step in the textile production before the clothing operations or even after garmenting.
The type of finishing treatment and different process parameters affect the tactile sensation in a significant way.
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