To Study The Smoothness Behaviour Of Cotton Fabrics

Abstract

newline Comfort is one of the essential requirements for wearable clothing. There are various ways and newlinemeans by which this requirement can be achieved. It depends on various factors like selection of newlinefibre (natural or manmade), type of yarn (ring spun, open end, high twist, low twist etc), fabric newlinestructure (woven, knit etc), type of finishing imparted (chemical or mechanical) etc. Out of these, newlinefinishing treatment is one of the important factors for value addition in any type of fabric. newlineAlmost all wearable fabrics are finished with chemical finishing especially softener treatment. newlineThese softeners when applied on the fabric provide good hand and surface smoothness. It is a newlinewell known fact that cotton, being a natural fibre, is one of most preferable fibres for newlinemanufacturing comfort fabric. The present study is divided into two phases. newlineIn the first phase cotton fabric is given treatment with various softeners at different newlineconcentrations. Their chemistry of attachment with cotton fabric is analyzed. The factors which newlineaffect the smoothness property of cotton fabric are also identified. Instrumental techniques such newlineas Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Kawabata system, Fourier-transform infrared newlinespectroscopy (FTIR) and Digital image processing (DIP) analysis are used to study the structure newlineand surface behavior of cotton fabric before and after application of softeners. Under this phase, newlinea co-relation is established between the smoothness behavior of fabrics and treatment processes. newlineA grey cotton fabric was pretreated (singed, desized, scoured, bleached and mercerised) in the newlinemill. Finally the mercerizing cotton fabric was given softening treatment. Three types of silicone newlinebased softeners i) Polysiloxane macro-emulsion concentrated (DPT 096), ii) Micro emulsion newlineconcentrated (ULTR196) and iii) Highly concentrated amino silicon softener (Ultrafab AS conc) newlineat different concentrations (40g/l, 60g/l and 80g/l)were applied on mercerized cotton fabric using newlinepad-dry-cure method by adjusting 75% wet pick up. The treated