The transfer of fibres between clothing materials during simulated contacts and their persistence during wear. Part III--a preliminary investigation of the mechanisms involved.

The number of wool and acrylic fibres transferred to various articles of clothing during simulated contacts has been studied. The variation of the number of fibres transferred from a new wool sweater with area of contact is described and repeated contacts over the same area were found to cause the transfer of some fibres back to the garment of origin. The effects of pressure, type of recipient garment, number of repeated contact passes and fibre length were investigated for wool fibres using a balanced four-way classification experiment. After the analysis of variance all four effects, the pressure-length interaction and the garment-length interaction were found to be significant. The number of fibres transferred increased considerably with pressure and despite their surface appearance more fibres were observed on the recipient jackets than on the sweaters. When the same area of material was used for repeated contact passes the number of fibres transferred at each pass progressively decreased. The transference of fibres from the new wool sweater was compared to that from an old sweater and a square of handknitted acrylic material in a three-way classification experiment. The significance of recipient garment and the number of contact passes was confirmed but no significant difference was found in the number of fibres produced by the three different transferring materials. As high pressure and coarse recipient garments produced a greater proportion of short fibres than low pressure and smooth recipient garments, it is suggested that fragmentation of fibres during the contact may be an important mechanism in fibre transference.