Primary hand values explained

A paper on the fabric objective measurement technology in the textile and apparel supply chain was presented at the 83rd World Conference of the Textile Institute, Shanghai, held in May 2004. The paper highlights the investigation of 58 light-weight wool/wool blend fabrics for men's suiting using fabric mechanical blocks obtained from the KES-FB instruments measurements. The measured parameters were grouped under six heads, namely tensile, bending, shear, compression, surface properties, and fabric construction. Stepwise regression analysis show that the primary hand values for winter suiting fabrics were smoothness, stiffness, and softness where as stiffness, crispness, hardness and softness were the three primary hand values for summer materials. Surface properties and fabric compression are the two fabric mechanical blocks that determines the primary three hand values for the winter suiting fabrics. For the summer suiting fabrics, surface properties is the only fabric mechanical block which appears for all the three hand values. The computational requirement needed for the evaluation of fabric hand for wool and wool blend materials can be reduced by the use of three fabric mechanical blocks.