Vertical Wicking Behavior of Knitted Fabrics

摘要

Wicking describes the liquid transport behavior of fibrous assemblies and plays an important role in deciding the comfort characteristics of fabrics. The present manuscript describes the vertical wicking behavior of different knitted fabrics. The wicking measurement has been done using a prototype based on capacitance principle. The developed prototype is capable of measuring the rate and amount of liquid transport more precisely during wicking. Several weft knitted double jersey fabrics were produced using V-bed machine by changing material and machine parameters. Many variables, i.e., fiber type, machine gauge, number of yarn feed and presence of elastomeric yarn, were chosen for the experimental design. It has been found that these factors significantly affect the wicking in fabrics. Fabrics made up of cotton or viscose yarns were showing lower wicking rate compared to PET samples (p<0.01). The rate and amount of water rise also decreases for the fabric samples produced with increasing the machine gauge and the number of yarn feed in the V-bed machine (p<0.01). Incorporating elastomeric yarn in the knitted structure make the fabric structure relatively tighter and offer more drag to the water rise, and hence show poor wicking characteristics. The developed prototype could be further used to examine the influence of several other factors of the fabric structure on the wicking behaviour.