A Novel Method for Measuring the Wet Cling Properties of Textiles

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The human body sweats to release heat, and the presence of sweat may cause the sticking of fabric against skin, leading to astrong discomfort clingy perception or skin injuries. This paper describes a novel testing method designed to measure the wetcling frictional force between clothing fabrics and a wetted skin simulant. The developed methodology shows that sweatingrate, sweating time, and ambient air movement influence the build-up of frictional resistance to the movement of fabrics alongthe surface of a sweating skin simulant. The test method enables observation of the relationships between the measured wetcling force and the construction of a selected set of polyester and cotton knit fabrics having different moisture absorption,wicking, and drying properties. This analysis reveals that thin polyester jersey knits with excellent wicking, evaporative,and drying properties exhibit low levels of wet cling. On the other hand, thicker double-knit polyester construction canexhibit lower wet cling force when its inherently greater absorption capacity minimizes moisture build-up in the skin-fabricinterface. Cotton knits generally have higher wet cling resistance than polyester knits of similar thickness because of theirgreater capacity to retain moisture. The wet cling tester shows that moisture-related friction force is not present in knit fabricsthat incorporate a durable water repellent finish, demonstrating an alternative method to reduce wet cling. It also revealsthat one-way wicking fabrics reduce wet cling frictional force by transporting moisture away from the fabric–skin interface.
These studies find no statistically significant correlations between standard measures of fabric moisture properties and wetcling force in this group of knit materials. This finding underscores the complex nature of the factors influencing wet clingperformance. It demonstrates the utility of the developed test methodology for measuring wet cling in different conditions.