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Introduction
Objective measurement has played an important role in the wool-textile industry. Its uses are many and varied and occur all along the wool-textile pipeline, from the marketing of raw wool to various processing stages and, finally, retailers of wool products.
While the objective measurement of raw wool has been widely accepted for specification and marketing of raw wool, it is only in recent years that the implementation of fabric objective measurement technology has drawn much international attention.
Credit for this must be given to Professor Kawabata, who developed the Kawabata Evaluation System for Fabrics (commonly known as the Kawabata system or the KES-F system). Fabric objective measurement provides a scientific means to quantify the quality and performance characteristics of fabric It can be used as a basis for fabric specification, product and process development, process control, quality assurance and communication between various industry sectors.
FAST-1 compression meter
The processes of worsted finishing, in particular dry finishing, modify the surface of a fabric. These modifications are primarily fabric compression, which occurs during the pressing operations, and the stabilization of the compressed form (setting), which occurs during decatizing. The degree of fabric compression and amount of fabric stabilization affect the thickness of the fabric surface layer and consequently the appearance and handle of a fabric.
The FAST-1 compression meter (Figure 1) has been developed to measure fabric thickness and, in addition, the variability and the durability of the thickness of the fabric surface layer. (Figure 1 omitted.) The FAST-1 compression meter is able to measure fabric thickness to micrometer resolution at two predetermined loads, and thereby measure the thickness layer. The surface layer is defined as the difference in fabric thickness at the two predetermined loads.
For determining the durability of the surface layer, the measurements of fabric thickness are repeated after the fabric has been released. The fabric is released by steaming on an open Hoffman press for 30 seconds. The increase in fabric surface thickness obtained by this process is similar to the increase that occurs during the rigours of garment manufacture. The...