THERMOLITE(?) Thermal Material On Knitted Fabrics And Researching Of Their Properties

The use of thermal materials as the raw material for quilt, thermal underwear and sport socks have been growing very fast in the last ten years. Originally they were made of wool, cotton, down, fur and other natural materials. Now the choices have expanded to synthetic fibers, such as hollow fibers and superfine denier fiber. These synthetic fibers, which are not only easy to produce but also have advantages such as light weight, high heat insulating ability, and good air permeability, have replaced wool and cotton for producing thermal underwear, cold-weather gear, down-like quilt and so on.Thermolite(?) is a new hollow thermal fiber developed by Dupont Company. Its hollow structure is like a polar bear's fur structure, which has a 75% hollow rate. Each fiber can contain more air for an air protect layer. This prevents the cold from air entering, transfers the sweat from the skin surface to the air, which keeps the body warm, dry, and comfortable. This report shows Thermolite(?)'s dry rate is twice that of silk and cotton, and it is suitable for making thermal socks, sportswear and sleeping bags.Recently, Thermolite? has been widely used all over the world,especially for thermal underwear and in the sportswear fields. Its superior properties have earned the attention in the material field and the whole world. However, China still does not use Thermolite? very much and there is less research on it. Finding out the factors involved in Thermolite? material will be very useful for using Thermolite? more in the future and at lower cost.In this thesis firstly the basic properties of Thermolite? yarn were tested, such as strength and hairiness and then compared with other normal yarns. Thermolite? has the typical properties of staple yarn. Refering to mechanical properties, Thermolite?'s touchness, abrasion-proof and ballistics-resistant, its anti-pilling tendency is not good. Then we used 100% Thermolite?, TH/C, cotton and Richcel? to knit different structures by computer flat knitting machine. Nine greige fabrics were knitted, scoured, dyed, soft finishing and heat setting.After dying and finishing, the fabrics were tested for thickness, weight, heat insulating ability, moisture permeability, water-retention properties, air permeability, anti-pilling tendency, colour fastness, tensile strength and tear strength. Comparing the testing results, Thermolite? fabric is light weight and has good heat insulating ability and moisture permeability. But its anti-pilling tendency is not as good as Thermolite? blended with cotton.The properties of these nine fabrics were estimated by the methodsof Fuzzy Decision Making and Fuzzy clustering. In the end some conclusions were made and which will hopefully be useful for future production.Fang Fang (Textile Engeering) Supervised by Zhao Li...