Comparison of two methods to evaluate the resistance of protective gloves to cutting by sharp blades

Two methods for evaluating the cut resistance of gloves were compared: one developed at ITF-Lyon (Institut Textile de France) and one developed at the IRSST (Institut de recherche en sante et en securite du travail du Quebec) in Montreal, Canada. The ITF method uses a circular blade with a pressure of 5 N applied on the blade. The blade speed is sinusoidal with a maximum of 100 mm/s. The value to be measured is the number of cycles to cut the material and is compared with that of a reference material. The IRSST method uses a straight blade and the pressure is applied on the sample holder. Series of tests using at least two different weights must be performed at a constant blade speed. The cut resistance for the IRSST method is measured as the load required to cut the material at a 10-mm blade displacement. Eighteen glove materials of different levels of cut resistance were compared. With uniform materials such as neoprene, no variability is observed with the ITF method, while a coefficient of variation of approximately 10% is observed with the IRSST method. These results may be due to different sensitivities of the test methods. The ranking of cut resistance obtained with both methods can be considered as equivalent and the results are comparable with a correlation coefficient r of 0.89.