Research Regarding the Physical-Mechanical Properties of Knits for Garments – Abrasion Resistance

Understanding thermomechanical failure of athletic textiles via the pendulum skid method

“…This is similar to the ideas presented by Ramkumar and Vlad that loosely knitted fibers pile and abrade easily because they are gripped by the abrasion surface. [3][4] Additionally, prior art using Martindale testers agree with our observation that fabric construction significantly dictates abrasion behaviors; however, the pendulum skid method was able to induce measurable failure in the order of tens to hundreds of cycles using a straight line trajectory rather than thousands of circular cycles. [14][15][16] Furthermore, with the fixed geometry of the skid head, all fabrics experience the same abrasion circumference; however, if there is macroporosity within that circumference, then greater area-normalized shear energies will be experienced by the fibers present.…”

“…Using the pendulum abrasion tester, it was found that the average fabric abrasion volume was 0.07 cm 3 and increased by 4 C for an input of 5.5 J of kinetic energy. Given that the density of polyester is 1.4 g/cm 3 and the heat capacity is 1 J/g-K, it was found that 0.4 J of the initial 5.5 J was consumed by the fabric heating, or about 7%. Although there is considerable variability associated with the thermocouple measurements, abrasion radius and mass, fabric densities and composition, and individual use cases, this model predicts fabric abrasion heating.…”

“…stitches are more effective at mitigating abrasion mass loss compared to looser single jersey knits. 3 In addition for jersey knit structures, Ramkumar found that as knit loop length and yarn linear density increased, adhesion between fabric surfaces increased as well as the energy necessary to start or continue shearing. 4 In shearing and abrading conditions, it was found that synthetic fibers, such as nylon, improved the longevity of wool and cotton blends.…”

“…4 In shearing and abrading conditions, it was found that synthetic fibers, such as nylon, improved the longevity of wool and cotton blends. 3 The polymer crystallinity also impacts polymer abrasion behavior; Samyn et al reported that nylon g crystallites have lower yield stresses but higher ductility in comparison to a crystallites, and higher g content nylons experience lower wear rates. 2 Although this list of structure-property relationships is not exhaustive, it does provide a foundation for analyzing the thermomechanical behavior of textiles and fibers for this study.…”

Developing Super-Hydrophobic and Abrasion-Resistant Wool Fabrics Using Low-Pressure Hexafluoroethane Plasma Treatment

“…As wool fibre textiles have a moderate abrasion resistance [15], the abrasion resistance of wool fabrics has been improved by blending with nylon and elastic fibres [16], tailoring yarn and fabric structures (e.g., yarn structure, twist, count, hairiness, fabric weave, thread density, interlacements, etc.) [15,17,18], as well as using nano finishing [18]. Although fluoropolymer coatings are known to have high abrasion resistance, no attempts have been made to date to improve abrasion resistance of wool fabrics using fluoropolymer coatings or deposition of fluoropolymers through plasma treatment.…”