COMFORT PROPERTIES OF SPACER FABRICS FROM SUSTAINABLE FIBERS FOR SPORTSWEAR APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Sportswear, the clothing including footwear, worn during sports or physical exercise, has an increasing demand and the sports apparel with improved comfort properties have become more popular than ever. Enhancing the wearer’s comfort is possible by engineering fabric structures by incorporating suitable fibers. For doing so, in this study, bilayered spacer fabric samples were produced from sustainable fibers namely, recycled PA66 and PA6-Umorfil yarns, together with 44 dtex elastane. A PA6 FDY monofilament yarn was employed as the spacer yarn. The results showed that comfort properties of sports apparel can be improved by using recycled and Umorfil poliamide fibers in different parts of the garments depending on the intended use and purposes. Use of such sustainable fibers in the fabric structure is not only suitable for achieving active sportswear comfort but also is respectful to the environment.