Determination of comfort indices of fabrics using fabric touch tester (FTT)

Being comfortable with the fabrics that we are wearing is one of the elements of satisfaction in life. Hence, fabric comfort needs to be quantified in order to understand the factors that make it comfortable. However, the evaluation of comfort is often related to ambiguity and subjectivity which hinder the potential to be applied widely in the clothing industry. Therefore, this study aims to measure comfort indices of fabric by incorporating the use of a relatively new equipment in the market; Fabric Touch Tester (FTT). The performance of FTT in discriminating the hand of polyester-cotton knitted fabrics made of airjet, rotor, compact and ring-spun yarns with two levels of twist was analysed. The results indicate that the FTT device can successfully distinguish between the considered fabrics. From the generated models, the FTT indices and input variable relationship were obtained with 0.4-0.6 R2 value. The type of yarn has an obvious influence on fabric thermal conductivity while the levels of yarn twist considered moderately affected the compression recovery and surface friction properties of the fabrics. Based on the measured fabric indices, FTT also made predictions on comfort indices of the fabrics which shows low twisted compact yarns are the roughest with the lowest index 0.02 while airjet-based fabrics are the smoothest but hardest i.e. index 0.28 and 0.61 respectively. In comparison with other tested fabrics, ring-based fabrics are the softest; i.e. index 0.7. This suggests the feasibility of the instrument for tactile measurement of fabrics. However, the precision of the comfort prediction models of FTT needs to be validated by human panels or different measuring methods.