FABRIC OBJECTIVE MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY: PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE POTENTIAL

The continuing development of the textile and clothing manufacturing industries depends in no small measure on the successful implementation of reliable objective methods for the specification, prediction and control of fabric quality and performance attributes. In the last decade, we have seen several notable examples of fabric design and development, and production and quality control in textile processing and clothing manufacture in terms of fabric objective measurement technology. The quality and performance characteristics of fabrics are related to their low stress mechanical, surface and dimensional properties. The experimental errors involved in the measurement of these properties are known to be much smaller than the errors involved in subjective assessment of fabric quality attributes, especially those made by individual judges. We may define the concept of fabric objective measurement as a necessary and sufficient set of instrumentally measurable parameters which are required to specify the fabric quality, tailorability and clothing performance. In this way, fabric objective measurement technology provides a “fingerprint” of the fabric quality, tailorability and performance implying that any two fabrics will generally differ at least to some extent in their objectively measurable characteristics. Fabric objective measurement technology therefore provides the key for scientific and engineering principles to be used for fabric specification and design as well as process control. The most important consequence of the introduction of fabric objective measurement technology will be the promotion of technological communication between various sectors of the textile and clothing industry, research and development workers and all other sectors of industry (e.g. fibre producers, retailing, merchandising, machinery manufacturers) concerned with fibres, textiles and clothing.