Associations between the physiological basis of fabric-evoked prickle, fiber and yarn characteristics and the Wool ComfortMeter value

The association between the incidents counted by the measurement wire of the Wool ComfortMeter (WCM) and the previously published neurophysiological basis for fabric-evoked prickle have been investigated for lightweight knitted woolen fabrics. The fiber lengths and diameters capable of triggering the fabric-evoked prickle sensation were calculated using Euler’s buckling formula, and it is suggested that fibers as fine as 10 µm are capable of triggering the prickle response if they have a short enough free length protruding from the surface. Good agreement was found between the sensory assessed human prickle sensation and the wearer prickle response predicted using the WCM outputs, especially when the latter were transformed using Stevens’s Psychophysical Power Law.

[1]  R. Westerman,et al.  Identification of the physical stimulus and the neural basis of fabric-evoked prickle. , 1988, Journal of neurophysiology.

[2]  M. T. Watson,et al.  Some Tensile Properties of Specialty Hair Fibers , 1966 .

[3]  D. H. Tester.  Relationship between Comfort Meter values and the prickle rating of garments in wearer trials , 2010 .

[4]  G. R. S. Naylor,et al.  Fabric-Evoked Prickle in Worsted Spun Single Jersey Fabrics Part II: The Role of Fiber Length, Yarn Count, and Fabric Cover Factor , 1997 .

[5]  Rubin Wang,et al.  Probability of prickliness detection in a model of populations of fiber ends prickling human skin , 2012, Fibers and Polymers.

[6]  Clifford J. Woolf,et al.  Nociceptors—Noxious Stimulus Detectors , 2007, Neuron.

[7]  Grs Naylor,et al.  Knitted fabric made from 23.2um wool can be less prickly than fabric made from finer 21.5um wool. , 1992 .

[8]  Maryam Naebe,et al.  Effect of fibre, yarn and knitted fabric attributes associated with wool comfort properties , 2013 .

[9]  B. Mcgregor,et al.  Comfort properties of superfine wool and wool/cashmere blend yarns and fabrics , 2013 .

[10]  Geoffrey Rs Naylor,et al.  An instrument for assessing fabric prickle propensity , 2012 .

[11]  Grs Naylor,et al.  The mechanics of fibre buckling in relation to fabric-evoked prickle. , 1992 .

[12]  Maryam Naebe,et al.  Relationship between wearer prickle response with fibre and garment properties and Wool ComfortMeter assessment , 2013 .

[13]  John Stanton,et al.  Skin comfort of base layer knitted garments. Part 1: Description and evaluation of wearer test protocol , 2014 .

[14]  Maryam Naebe,et al.  Effect of surface treatment and knit structure on comfort properties of wool fabrics , 2013 .

[15]  R. J. Mayfield,et al.  Fabric-Evoked Prickle , 1992 .

[16]  Junyan Hu,et al.  Neuromechanical representation of fabric-evoked prickle: Spatial and probability integration , 2010 .

[17]  Yao Yu,et al.  The effect of humidity and temperature on Wool ComfortMeter assessment of single jersey wool fabrics , 2013 .

[18]  Maryam Naebe,et al.  Predicting comfort properties of knitted fabrics by assessing yarns with the Wool ComfortMeter , 2013 .