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The overall comfort of a bedding system is, among others, the result of moisture and thermal management capabilities of its components including mattress ticking fabrics. The hand of mattress ticking fabrics, their smoothness, softness, flexibility and thermal properties in particular, partially contribute to the sleep quality. Manufacturers pay a great deal of attention to this aspect and make efforts to improve fabric hand as customers always touch and squeeze the fabric and the perceived fabric hand will partially influence their buying decision. In this study the hand of twelve mattress fabrics was investigated by the Fabric Touch Tester (FTT), which is a relatively new characterization method of fabric hand. FTT measures simultaneously thirteen fabric indices related to four categories of fabric physical properties such as bending, compression, thermal and surface properties. These fabric indices are subsequently used by the FTT software to predict three primary comfort indices (i.e. smoothness, softness, warmth) and two global comfort indices (i.e. total hand and total feel). The fabrics were differentiated by three production parameters namely fabric mass per unit area, concentration of softener and fiber composition. Relevant tactile properties for mattress ticking fabrics such as smoothness, softness, warmth and flexibility were assessed by an expert panel and the average scores given by the assessors were correlated with the fabric indices measured by FTT. Among the selected variables, fabric mass per unit area has the greatest influence on all FTT fabric indices. Due to the large fabric set, considerable variances were observed between the scores assigned by the panels. That resulted in poor correlations between tactile properties and selected production parameters, although the trend seems to be correct and all the factors were found statistically significant. Strong correlations were found between the FTT fabric indices and tactile properties assessed by the panels, except warmth, which suggests that FTT is suitable to assess mattress ticking fabrics with elevated mass per unit area and uneven texture.

Fabric Touch Tester (FTT) is a relatively new device from SDL Atlas to determine touch properties of fabrics. It simultaneously measures 13 touch-related fabric physical properties in four modules that include bending and thickness measurements. This study aims to comparatively analyze the thickness and bending measurements made by the FTT and the common standard methods used in the textile industry. The results obtained with the FTT for 11 different fabrics were compared with that of standard methods. Despite the different measurement principle, a good correlation was found between the two methods used for the assessment of thickness and bending. As FTT is a new tool for textile comfort measurement and no standard yet exists, these findings are essential to determine the reliability of the measurements and how they relate to the well-established standard methods.

The contact resistance of two interlacing electro-conductive yarns embedded in a hybrid woven fabric will constitute a problem for electro-conductive textiles under certain circumstances. A high contact resistance can induce hotspots, while a variable contact resistance may cause malfunctioning of the components that are interconnected by the electro-conductive yarns. Moreover, the contact robustness should be preserved over time and various treatments such as washing or abrading should not alter the functioning of the electro-conductive textiles. The electrical resistance developed in the contact point of two interlacing electro-conductive yarns is the result of various factors. The influence of diameter of the electro-conductive stainless steel yarns, the weave pattern, the weft density, and the abrasion on the contact resistance was investigated. Hybrid polyester fabrics were produced according to the design of experiments (DoE) and statistical models were found that describe the variation of the contact resistance with the selected input parameters. It was concluded that the diameter of the stainless steel warp and weft yarns has a statistically significant influence on the contact resistance regardless of the weave. Weft density had a significant influence on the contact resistance but only in case of the twill fabrics. Abrasion led to an increase in contact resistance regardless of the weave pattern and the type of stainless steel yarn that was used. Finally, a combination of parameters that leads to plain and twill fabrics with low contact resistance and robust contacts is recommended.

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