Detailed Study on the Comfort Properties of Zari Fabric

Abstract

Indian silk industry is one of the premier industries producing silk and next to china. Today the sericulture industry is faced with many problems and silk from china is being imported to combat shortage of silk. One among the product using silk is zari yarn. The Zari yarn is a value added yarn manufactured using silk. This yarn is three components consisting of 40% of silver, 0.5 % of gold and 59.5% of silk in the core position. This yarn is manufactured using the wrap spinning technique in which the flattened silver wire is wrapped on to the silk yarn and then coated with gold. The zari yarn is mostly used in saree border. The saree woven using the zari yarn will weigh around 800-1000gms depending on the design structure. The silk saree with Zari thread work will cost around 30000-84000/-depending on the weight of zari yarn used in the silk fabric. Lot of research work has been carried out to improve the texture of silk yarn. More work has been carried out in the past to improve the aesthetic and comfort properties of silk fabric. Even though the zari yarn has been used in the silk fabric manufacturing, so far there has been no research work conducted to study the zari yarn properties and its characteristics. The effect of plasma treatment on the zari yarn also studied in terms of weight loss and improvement in adhesion properties which will help in improved performance of zari yarn. The zari yarn made up of Bombyx mori silk as core is is used to produce the fabric. The comfort properties of zari yarn are also studied by using the Kawabata Evaluation system. The low stress mechanical properties of zari fabric with and without plasma treatment have been studied.