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To examine a simple testing method of measuring the force to pull a fabric through a series of parallel pins to determine the fabric softness property.

A testing system was setup for fabric pulling force measurements and the testing parameters were experimentally determined. The specific pulling forces were compared with the fabric assurance by simple testing (FAST) parameters and subjective softness ranking. Their correlations were also statistically analyzed.

The fabric pulling force reflects the physical and surface properties of the fabrics measured by the FAST instrument and its ability to rank fabric softness appears to be close to the human hand response on fabric softness. The pulling force method can also distinguish the difference of fabrics knitted with different wool fiber contents.

Only 21 woven and three knitted fabrics were used for this investigation. More fabrics with different structures and finishes may be evaluated before the testing method can be put in practice.

The testing method could be used for objective assessment of fabric softness.

The testing method reported in this paper is a new concept in fabric softness measurement. It can provide objective specifications for fabric softness, thus should be valuable to fabric community.

The aim of this paper was to explore the use of objective fabric parameters in 3D virtual garment simulation.

Two methods (fabric assurance by simple testing and Browzwear's fabric testing kit) of obtaining objective fabric measurements and the derived parameters for virtual garment simulation were studied. Three parameters (extension, shear and bend) were investigated to establish whether the selected virtual software derived comparable parameters from the objective fabric measurements.

It was found that the conversion from the objective fabric measurement data to the required parameters for virtual simulation varied significantly. Manual analysis of the objective measurements showed the two test methods to be comparable for extension and shear parameters; However, some adjustment to the test method was required. The third parameter to be investigated (bending rigidity) concluded that the test methods and results obtained from the two different apparatus were not comparable and recommended further experimentation using a different testing technique.

Future research should be conducted on a larger variety of fabrics ensuring comparable loads are used in the testing of the extensibility parameters. An expansion of this preliminary study should give more conclusive evidence of the trends observed.

Objective measurement of extension, shear and bend properties was investigated in relation to the derived parameters for a selected virtual simulation package. An understanding of such parameters will aid the general industry in adapting 3D virtual garment simulation as part of the standard product development process, resulting in a significantly shorter product development cycle.

Fabric testing has progressed from subjective hand evaluation to very sophisticated instrumental techniques. Examines past developments and suggests some future directions in this area. Reports research work being pursued by the present authors in developing automated test systems.

A robotic system for testing fabrics under low‐stress conditions has been developed at UMIST. This system is capable of conducting all the mechanical tests on a single piece of fabric, without operator intervention, thus eliminating human‐related errors. Looks at test control strategy and acquisition of force and deformation data, from the viewpoint of process control in garment assembly.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Tensile property is one basic mechanics performance of the fabric. In general, not only the tensile values of the fabric are needed, but also the dynamic changing process under the tension is also needed. However, the dynamic tensile process cannot be included in the common testing methods by using the instruments after fabric weaving.

By choosing the weft yarn and warp yarn in the fabric as the minimum modeling unit, 1:1 finite element model of the whole woven fabrics was built by using AutoCAD software according to the measured geometric parameters of the fabrics and mechanical parameters of yarns. Then, the fabric dynamic tensile process was simulated by using the ANSYS software. The stress–strain curve along the warp direction and shrinkage rate curve along the weft direction of the fabrics were simulated. Meanwhile, simulation results were verified by comparing to the testing results.

It is shown that there are four stages during the fabric tensile fracture process along the warp direction under the tension. The first stage is fabric elastic deformation. The second stage is fabric yield deformation, and the change rate of stress begins to slow down. The third stage is fiber breaking, and the change of stress fluctuates since the breaking time of the fibers is different. The fourth stage is fabric breaking.

In this paper, the dynamic tensile process of blended woven fabrics was studied by using finite element method. Although there are differences between the simulation results and experimental testing results, the overall tendency of simulation results is the same as the experimental testing results.

Examines the fourteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

The current bending test method can only test the bending performance of fabric in one direction at a time. It is not possible to directly observe the bending morphology of fabrics in different directions, and it is necessary to cut samples and repeat the test several times, which takes more time. For this situation, a multidirectional visualization of the fabric bending test method is proposed, using which multiple results can be obtained at one time and the fabric bending can be visualized.

About 17 fabrics are tested using a self-designed device. The fabrics are cut into special triangles and multiple sets of results in three directions are obtained at once using the device. The experimental specimens are photographed from the above and the transverse elongation length, bending projection area and circumference are extracted after image processing.

The results show that the correlation coefficients of transverse elongation, bending projected area and circumference are good with the bending length measured by the cantilever method. In which, all three indicators are positively correlated with the bending length. This indicates the good feasibility of the new method.

This method can get the bending index of fabrics in three directions, with five samples in each direction at one time. Meanwhile, it can also visualize the flexural differences between different fabrics and directions of the same fabric. It can provide more efficient testing means for the textile testing field, and the testing efficiency is 15 times of the existing method, which has better theoretical significance and practical values.

Surgical gown fabrics are categorized for liquid penetration resistance by standard tests under specified laboratory conditions, which can be different from the conditions encountered in the surgical environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of temperature and challenge liquid (CL) type on the effectiveness of liquid penetration resistance of surgical gown fabrics.

One disposable and one reusable surgical gown fabric were tested for liquid penetration using standard methods required in American Society for Testing Materials F2407 for classifying the materials used in Levels 1‐3 surgical gowns. Standard test conditions were compared to varied conditions of ambient/fabric temperature (AFT), CL type and challenge liquid temperature (CLT). Analysis of variance was used to determine the effects of variables on liquid penetration.

AFT, CL type and CLT were significant (p<0.05) variables for liquid penetration for at least one of the test fabrics. Higher ambient temperature, fabric and liquid temperature conditions resulted in greater liquid penetration. Use of synthetic blood as the CL resulted in higher liquid penetration than observed with distilled water.

Results suggest that temperatures within the range of body heat or ambient surgical environments are sufficient to affect liquid penetration of surgical gown fabrics. Also, the use of CLs other than distilled water and the use of CLs warmed to body temperature may be needed to accurately assess the liquid penetration resistance of surgical gown fabrics. Level of protection afforded by surgical gowns may be compromised by variability in these conditions.

Conventional wisdom has held that differences between standard testing temperatures and body temperature or ambient temperature in the surgical theatre were insufficient to influence liquid penetration. This study has shown otherwise. No previous studies were found that addressed these variables but our study illustrates their effect on selected materials.

The paper aims to propose an approach to intelligent evaluation of the tensile test. A robotized system is used that performs the fabrics tensile test and estimates the extensibility of the samples using a feed‐forward neural network while trying to imitate the human expert estimation.

The specifications of the tensile test are derived by an extensive observation of the respective experts' estimation performance. The fabric sample size and the experimental conditions are specified. Linguistic values of the term “fabric extensibility” are extracted through a knowledge acquisition process. The tensile test is performed by a robot manipulator with a simple gripper and the experimental measurements (force, strain) are fed online into a neural network. The network is trained according to the extensibility estimations of the experts. The trained network is tested in estimating unknown fabric's extensibility.

The results demonstrate that the system is capable of estimating the extensibility of new fabrics.

This work can be integrated in the robotized sewing process with intelligent control where the fabric's extensibility in terms of linguistic values is necessary. The proposed system initiates a new approach, in which the fabric properties are expressed and used in a way that will facilitate the introduction of the artificial intelligence methods into the clothing industry.