A New Process for Compacting Textile Materials

ton fabrics have been commercially available for the past twenty years. However, satisfactory control of relaxation and swelling shrinkage, by mechanical means, of a wide range of fabric structures composed of either natural or synthetic fibers or both, has been achieved only recently. In order to trace logically the steps in the development of this new process, some historical background of research in the field is necessary. Considering all fibers and all mechanisms thought to be pertinent to the instability of textile structures resulting from wetting, drying, and agitating, the wool fiber is unique in that textile structures made from it evidence shrinkage, attributable to the fiber surface character as well as to its elastic behavior