Tactile comfort characterization of knitted fabrics based on the ring-shaped style tester

• Published in: Textile research journal Vol. 91; no. 7-8; pp. 766 - 777
• Main Authors: Shao, Yawen, Sun, Yi, Zheng, Dongming, Liu, Gui, Du, Zhaoqun, Liu, Jinkang, Wang, Mingxing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.04.2021; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Cluster analysis; Clustering; Comfort; Correlation analysis; Fabrics; Linearity; Parameters; Thickness; k-means cluster; ring-shaped style tester; knitted fabrics; handle characteristics
• ISSN: 0040-5175; 1746-7748
• DOI: 10.1177/0040517520957391

The main content of this paper is to objectively characterize the tactile comfort of fabric through the ring-shaped style tester. It mainly explains the objective tactile comfort of knitted fabric through the curve parameters measured by the ring-shaped style tester and structural parameter thickness. In this paper, by adopting the methods of correlation analysis and cluster analysis, the curve parameters, including slope in the linear segments of the left-hand part of the curve (K1), the right-hand area of the curve (A2), the distance between the abrupt point and the peak point (X), the linearity of the left-hand curve (L) and the ratio of the left-hand area to the right-hand area of the curve (C), are used. In order to verify its effectiveness, the results of subjective evaluation are compared and analyzed with the objective clustering. The experimental results show that the subjective judgment has good correlation with the objective clustering. This indicates that the curve parameters obtained through the ring-shaped style tester and structural parameters can be used to effectively represent the tactile comfort performance of fabrics.