Studies on elastane-cotton core-spun stretch yarns and fabrics: Part III—Comfort characteristics

Abstract

Air permeability, thermal characteristics and microclimate conditions of the woven fabrics made of stretchable elastane core-spun yarns have been studied. The weft yarns are spun with different spinning parameters, namely elastane stretch, proportion of elastane core and twist multiplier. A three-variable factorial design technique, proposed by Box &Behnken, is used to investigate the combined interaction effect of the above variables. The effect of these variables on air permeability, thermal resistance, thermal absorbtivity and various microclimate conditions (temperature and relative humidity) with or without air flow has been analyzed. The work has been performed in two stages, non–convective mode and convective mode for examining microclimate behavior of the above fabrics. For the analysis, the contour plots are obtained to examine the interactive effect of all the variables on different fabric characteristics. It has been observed from the experimental results that twist multiplier is the most influencing parameters on air permeability and thermal behavior of the fabrics. The selected levels of the variables do not show marked difference on the microclimate under convective and non-convective modes, and all fabric samples achieve same microclimate conditions after certain period of time.