Comparison of Mechanical Properties of Shirting Materials Measured on the KES-F and FAST Instruments

This study compares the test results of the FAST system (fabric assurance by simple testing) with those of the KES-F (Kawabata evaluation system for fabrics) for two series of twenty-two shirting materials in terms of their low-stress fabric mechanical properties of bending, shear, and tensile deformation. The first series of eighteen shirting fabrics, ranging in weight from 96 to 170 g/m2, was sampled from a leading Hong Kong shirt manufacturer. The second series of four denim shirting fabrics, ranging in weight from 199 to 217 g/m2, was later included to test the validity of extrapolating the relationships observed for the first series of eighteen shirting materials. Despite some considerable differences in the measurement principles of the two testing systems, there are highly significant correlations between the parameters obtained from the test results of the two systems.