Good textile sensory characteristics required by the consumers incites textile industrialists to improve the sensory properties of fabrics. Therefore, several textile finishing processes have been proposed to improve the feel of fabrics. This work investigates the effects of some finishing treatments on the tactile properties using sensory analysis. The studied finishing treatments, namely bleaching, dyeing in different conditions, bio‐polishing, softening, emerizing and calendaring, were applied on 100% cotton knitted fabrics. The obtained sensory properties of treated fabrics are in accordance with each finishing treatment aim. Hence, the bio‐polishing treatment confers to fabrics a less hairy feeling, softening procures to fabrics a more soft, hairy and elastic feeling and emerizing leads to a more hairy and soft feeling.
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
The practical use of the research presented in this paper is in the sensory evaluation of textile products. The tactile quality of fabrics is an important selling argument. Thus, the textile industrialists try to optimize the production, and especially finishing processes to improve the fabrics tactile feeling. Therefore, it seems necessary to develop tools describing and grading the sensory quality of the produced fabrics for similar consumers' evaluation.
In the present study, the effects of structure and process parameters on the tactile properties of cotton‐knitted fabrics had been investigated. The examined parameters were elastane plating, count of yarns and English gauge of knitting machine. The tactile quality was measured using sensory analysis and instrumental techniques. The obtained results showed that the variations of the production parameters induce a significant effect on 11 sensory attributes assessed by a French‐trained panel. Compression and surface properties, measured by the Kawabata Evaluation System are affected too by these variations. Using principal component analysis, the correlation between instrumental data and sensory scores had highlighted compression resilience, geometrical and frictional roughness as significant parameters.
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
The practical issue of the research presented in this article is to provide to textile and garment manufacturers the existed relationship between production parameters and the tactile properties of knitted fabrics. Although several studies on the tactile properties of woven fabrics were performed, a lack in the investigations intertwining tactile characteristics of knits from instrumental and sensory techniques has been noted. The correlation between the sensory attributes, assessed by a French‐trained panel, and the compression and surface properties measured by the Kawabata Evaluation System is established.
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