Optimization Of Soft Finishing Of Cotton Fabric And Characterization Of Its Softness

The softness of fabric is a comprehensive reflection of many kinds of low stress mechanical properties of fabric,which mainly reflects the difficulty of fabric deformation.It can be divided into two basic hand feelings: rigidity and softness.The rigidity mainly reflects the physical property of being stiff and resisting bending.The softness mainly reflects the property of giving little resistance to pressure.PhabrOmeter is fast and cheap as a hand feeling evaluation system.If it can make a reliable evaluation of fabric softness,it can provide effective guidance for the selection of fabric,sample processing,evaluation of new technology,control of product quality,etc.This paper tested whether it can accurately represent "softness".According to the English definition of the official website of PhabrOmeter,the test index R(resilience)of PhabrOmeter is redefined as rigidity.The larger the R value is,the smaller the flexibility is,and the greater the rigidity is.The test index S(softness)of PhabrOmeter is redefined as the soft hardness index,and the larger the S value is,the greater the softness is,and the smaller the hardness is.In this paper,seven softeners,Lichao softener?T530?Magansoft MF-C?JF-1602-30?C-928?H674 and DM-SE 6822,were selected to soften all cotton plain cloth and all cotton corduroy respectively according to the middle value of their recommended process parameters,and 16 kinds of all cloth were obtained as experimental materials.The rigidity and softness of 16 kinds of fabrics were tested and evaluated by using PhabrOmeter,KES-F,stiffness tester and subjective evaluation method.Through correlation analysis and characterization sensitivity analysis between the test results(respectively R(rigidity),S(softness),bending length CD of stiffness tester,B(bending rigidity),LC(compression linearity)of KES-F),It is found that R(rigidity)of PhabrOmeter can more accurately characterize the rigidity of all fabric with fluffy structure and large thickness such as cotton corduroy,S(softness)can be used to characterize its softness.and R(rigidity)of PhabrOmeter can be used to characterize its softness for cotton plain cloth with small thickness.The other purpose of this research is to select the softener with good softness and environmental protection from the various kinds of softeners in the market,and optimize its process parameters,so as to provide guidance for enterprises to improve the effect of soft finishing.On the basis of testing the rigidity,moisture permeability,air permeability and liquid water transfer performance of 8 kinds of cotton plain cloth,according to the evaluation method of rigidity as the first evaluation index,considering the moisture permeability,air permeability and liquid water transfer performance of the fabric,the optimal soft agent selected is Magansoft MF-C.The soft finishing was carried out by changing the softener concentration,baking temperature and baking time.The test and analysis of the rigidity,moisture permeability,permeability and liquid water transfer performance were carried out on the treated cotton flat cloth.The optimized process conditions were: softener concentration was 40g/L,baking temperature was 120 ?,baking time was 180 s.Using the same technical route as the cotton flat cloth(increase the softness index),the soft finishing of the cotton corduroy was carried out by selecting the softener and optimizing the finishing process.The optimal softener was Magansoft MF-C.the optimized process conditions were:softener concentration was 40g/L,baking temperature was 120 ?,baking time was 180 s.