Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

Spacer fabrics are 3D fabrics comprising of two outer fabric layers that are joined together and kept apart by an insert of spacer yarns, mostly monofilaments. This creates a ventilated layer of air, allowing heat and moisture to escape. Material types and the surface characteristics of the layers influence the thermoregulation properties of the spacer fabrics. In this study, Warp Knitted Spacer Fabrics (WKSF) were designed with polyester multifilament in face and back surface layers and are linked by middle layer made of polyester monofilament. Three-factorial Box and Behnken experimental design was used and the effects of different polyester filament denier combinations of face, middle and bottom layers and the porosity of the fabric on the thermoregulation properties were analysed. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and response surface design (RSM) were used for the optimization of porosity and thermal properties of the WKSF. The experimental result indicates that among the three layers of polyester WKSF, the face layer has exceptional influence on all the responses and the bottom layer has trivial or no impact. © 2021, The Korean Fiber Society for Fibers and Polymers and Springer.

Fashion Technology

VIT Fashion Institute of Technology

Chennai Campus

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Fibers and Polymers

Influence of Porosity and Yarn Linear Density on the Thermal Behaviour of Polyester Warp Knitted Spacer Fabrics

Natural fibers can play a vital role in composite and textile industries due to its renewable, biodegradable, and eco-friendly properties. Areca nut, one of the fiber-rich plants is wasted in large quantities from different industries especially the tobacco industry. In this review, a comprehensive analysis of the areca nut fibers from different parts like leaves and husk was discussed. The two different fibers–coarse and fine were studied on the basis of its characteristics, the well-planned extraction methods and production application were analyzed. This organized review will generate a sense of the uses of the areca fibers in fiber composites and nonwoven fabric productions. Also, an insight into the advantages of areca fibers over conventional synthetic fibers is clearly exposed through this review. © 2021 Taylor & Francis.

Journal of Natural Fibers

Review on Areca Nut Fiber and its Implementation in Sustainable Products Development

Thermo-physiological comfort properties are crucial aspects of interlining material comfort for shoe insole which can be examined for permeability and conductivity. Air and water vapour permeability, conductivity and resistance of thermal are the main criteria for thermo-physiological comfort properties. Clothing comfort can be enhanced through special finishes including plasma which is one among the well known for surface modification. Oxygen and argon atmospheric plasma were used to analyse the comfort properties of polyester warp-knitted spacer fabric based on the fabric thickness and gas processing time. The outcomes exposed a notable influence in the comfort properties of polyester spacer fabrics after the atmospheric plasma processing time. The results too pointed out that the water vapour permeability and thermal resistance increased, although the air permeability and thermal conductivity decreased with the atmospheric plasma processing. When considering all the values of plasma-treated spacer fabrics, the 3 mm thickness of polyester spacer fabric proved to have better response and comfort properties than the 2 and 4 mm spacer fabrics. The findings show that final comfort properties of polyester warp-knitted spacer fabrics can be improved by using plasma treatments, and argon plasma treatment is the best method when compared to the oxygen plasma treatment.

Journal of Industrial Textiles

Thermal comfort properties of plasma-treated warp-knitted spacer fabric for the shoe insole

The textile processing and finishing industry is the mainstay for the apparel segment. The textile processing and finishing industry consume an enormous amount of chemicals and release harmful substances to the environment. Therefore rethinking and refinement of the practice adopted and the techniques involved in processing and finishing are very much significant. The consciousness toward environmental protection, pollution control, and user-friendliness are the reasons for emerging trends with sustainable concepts where natural materials, plant ingredients, plant extracts can be used for textile finishing. This review paper discusses the exploratory qualitative study about the natural ingredients, extraction processes, finishing on textiles for various applications, its effects, and results. The applications of textile finishing processes covered in this article are fragrance finish, bio-polishing, bio-stone washing, insect repellent, and UV protection. This article also deals with the various methods of finishing textiles using natural products such as pad-dry-cure, microencapsulation, exhaust method, spraying technique, etc., and its implications. The finishing process using natural products has obtained satisfactory results with various tests for analyzing the properties of textiles after finishing. The critical analysis of this article has revealed that the textile finishing process using natural products seem to be economical, sustainable, have control over environmental and health hazard. © 2020 Taylor &amp; Francis.

Application of Sustainable Textile Finishing Using Natural Biomolecules

The porosity and air permeability of 3D polyester warp knitted spacer fabric has been determined by optimizing the structural parameters and using Box and Behnken experimental design. Spacer fabrics are developed by using polyester multifilament of 80-120 denier on the face layer and 30-70 denier on the bottom layer. Polyester monofilaments of 20-40 denier are used in the middle layer, deciding the third dimension of the fabric. Porosity and air permeability are estimated with respect to the linear density of polyester filaments, and response the surface design is used to predict the optimum linear density. Better air permeability and porosity are observed at the face layer denier of 100 and middle layer denier of 20. The statistical analysis proves that the degree of correlation of F values is 12.44 between the filament linear density and air permeability. © 2020, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR). All rights reserved.

Indian Journal of Fibre and Textile Research

Evaluation of air permeability behaviour of warp knitted spacer fabrics

PurposePolyester multifilament is used to produce the face and back layer of warp knitted spacer fabric (WKSF) and these two layers are connected by polyester monofilament as a middle layer. This fabric has unique and extraordinary characteristics, and different possibilities of fabric structure and the middle layer thickness are tried to find out the moisture management properties. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis study investigates the influence of fabric thickness and structure on moisture management properties.FindingsPolyester monofilament quickly up takes the water molecule from the water reservoir and transfers it by capillary action. The gravitational force and the availability space between the two outer surface layers restrict the movement of water molecules, although the pressure develops to push the molecules from the water reservoir. As a result, all the spacer fabric samples attain the equilibrium state very quickly. WKSF and the hexagonal net structure prove to be better in vertical wicking.Originality/valueThe liquid movement is quick in the front side of the spacer fabric, and the rate of wicking is higher in open structure than in the closed structure. It confirms that the hexagonal net structure produces high pore size on fabric and it reaches maximum wicking values. Fabric thickness does not have much influence on the vertical wicking properties of all fabric samples, and the rate of liquid movement produces a similar trend. In in-plane wicking, the polyester monofilament in the middle layer of spacer fabric plays a major role rather than the outer surface layers of fabric.

International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology

An effect of fabrics thickness and structure on moisture management properties of 3D spacer fabrics

Asian Textile Journal

Application of spacer fabric on body armour system

Low-stress mechanical properties of spacer fabrics are investigated from the six polyester warp-knitted spacer fabrics and have been tested on Kawabata instrument. Three different types of spacer fabrics with a thickness of 2, 3.1 and 4 mm were prepared using three different face layer structures, namely locknit, rhombic mesh and hexagonal net and the influences on fabric properties were studied. The fabric with secured locknit structure and higher fabric thickness shows the high values in the compression, bending and shear properties. However, in case of tensile strength, the fabric of open mesh structure with higher fabric thickness decreases the tensile properties. The 3.1 mm fabric thickness along with hexagonal net structure shows the fine response on compression properties and reasonable effects on the other low-stress mechanical properties. © 2016, © The Textile Institute and Informa UK Ltd 2016.

International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education

The influence of fabric parameter on low-stress mechanical properties of polyester warp-knitted spacer fabric

Sandwich structure of non-woven composite is produced by using a compressive hot pressing method. It is ranging from 2500 grams per square meter (gsm) to 3500 gsm. Composite sample is designed using Box and Behnken model. Considering 50–70% weight of jute fibre content with 30–50% weight of hollow conjugated polyester fibre, ideal thickness of the composites is maintained in the range from 4 to 5 mm. Thermal properties such as thermal conductivity, thermal resistance, thermal transmittance and thermal diffusivity were evaluated by considering three factors: weight of jute (A), weight of hollow conjugated polyester (B) and thickness of the composite (C). The thermal conductivity of the composite material is determined by heat flow meter method ASTM C518. Experiment result will help to make a suitable standardized panel composite for thermal insulation. It requires 3600 gsm 51/49 parts of contribution of jute/hollow conjugated polyester fibre with 5.0 mm thickness and 3200 gsm 76.5/23.5 parts of contribution of jute/hollow conjugated polyester fibre with 4.5 mm thickness of the composites. The composite weight of 3280 gsm shown optimized thermal responses, it was predicted from response surface method graph. Contribution of jute/hollow conjugated polyester fibre of 54/46 parts with 5.0 mm thickness would be considered to make standardized composite panel. Mostly air conditioning process reduces the energy cost spent for the thermal stability in indoor climate of dwellings. © 2015, © The Author(s) 2015.

Study of thermal properties of jute and hollow conjugated polyester fibre reinforced non-woven composite

The use of cushioned insoles has been recommended as a method to reduce the impact forces on feet associated with running. This study is used to determine the influence of insole structure and thickness on the permeability and conductivity properties of air and temperature. The insoles are constructed with warp-knitted polyester spacer fabrics with 3D construction and have good cushioning, permeability, and conductivity properties. The middle layer is made up of polyester monofilament yarn which decides the thickness of fabric, and the two outer surfaces of the fabric were made from polyester multifilament yarns which is a closed and open structure. The comfort properties of spacer fabric have been studied by measuring air permeability, water vapor permeability, and thermal properties with respect to fabric porosity. One-way analysis of variance is used to analyze the significant of fabric thickness and surface structures. The experimental result shows that the vertical gap of the two outer surface layers and the horizontal pore size of the face surface decide the permeability and conductivity properties of spacer fabrics. The fabric with higher porosity show high permeability of air and water vapor. Depending on the fabric thickness and structure, the 4-mm thickness of spacer fabric with locknit structure resulted in low air and water vapor permeability. It is found that the 3.1-mm thickness spacer fabric with hexagonal net structure proves to have good air and water vapor permeability and comparatively lower thermal conductivity. © 2014, © The Author(s) 2014.

Comfort properties of functional warp-knitted polyester spacer fabrics for shoe insole applications

An experimental investigation was carried out to study the effect of interlining material on the comfort and dynamic deformation characteristics of body armour. Suitable plies of interlining materials were selected based on the fabric comfort properties and the impact resistance specified for ballistic application. Kevlar woven fabric was used to block the projectile, and the spacer fabric was used as an interlining material to ensure wearing comfort and for imparting impact resistance. The yarn denier of the middle and bottom layers of the spacer fabrics was maintained constant, and three different deniers were used for the face layer. Three different plies of spacer fabrics were analysed by means of thermophysiological comfort properties to select the suitable interlining material for body armour. The experimental results confirm that the number of plies of spacer fabrics has significant influence on the ballistic armour characteristics than the face layer denier as proved by two-way ANOVA. The substantiated spacer fabric was used as an interlining material, and the depth and area of deformation were analysed. The research findings demonstrated that the three-plied warp-knitted polyester spacer fabric produced better results than single- and five-plied spacer fabrics. One-way ANOVA and Turkey’s HSD also confirmed the influence and interaction of different plies of spacer fabrics. © 2015 The Textile Institute.

Journal of the Textile Institute

Permeability and impact properties of warp-knitted spacer fabrics for protective application

Linear density of filament, fabric structure, and number of loops per unit area are the major factors which influence the porosity of warp knitted spacer fabrics. The characteristics of air and water permeability of textile fabrics are chiefly influenced by the porosity of the fabric. An attempt has been made to analyze the water vapor permeability of warp knitted polyester spacer fabric. Spacer fabric face and back surface layers are constructed by polyester multifilament and the middle layer is connected to the two surface layers by polyester monofilament. The behavior of porosity and water vapor permeability were analyzed with respect to the linear density of polyester. The experimental result indicates that the water vapor permeability is highly influenced by porosity of a fabric. The statistical analysis proves the degree of correlation between polyester linear density of spacer fabric layers and their responses. The face and middle layers of fabric are highly significant with the porosity and water vapor permeability. Box–Behnken model was adopted for optimization and a better R2 value of 96.5% is achieved in porosity and the water vapor permeability is 92%. © 2014, © The Author(s) 2014.