Improving the comfort properties of spacer fabrics for sportswear applications

Abstract

Sportswear is the clothing including footwear, worn during sports or physical exercise and has an increasing demand due to lifestyle changes, increasing both sports organizations and health consciousness of people. The global sports apparel market is estimated to witness a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of greater than 7% during the forecast period of 2022 to 2027. Bearing that into mind, it is no surprise to observe that the sports apparel with improved comfort properties have become more popular than ever. As is well known, comfort perception has four different aspects, such as thermo physiological, psychological, sensorial and wear comfort. In general, optimum thermal and moisture regulation, good air and water vapor permeability, rapid moisture absorption wicking and drying property, soft and pleasant touch are the most common characteristics sought in sportswear for satisfactory comfort properties. 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 with two different materials, on a Mayer & Cie Relanit 28 fine circular interlock knitting machine (30 inches in diameter and 92 feeders). 78/60x1 dtex S and Z twisted Recycle PA66 textured yarn (P) and 78/72 dtex S and Z twisted PA6-Umorfil textured yarn (U) together with 44 dtex Elastane were used for knitting both or one of the sides of the spacer samples. 22/1 dtex PA6 FDY monofilament yarn was employed as the spacer yarn. The samples were tested both in greige and dyed state and were conditioned under the standard atmosphere conditions (20 0C ±2, 65 % ±5%) before testing. Yarn and fabric tests, such as thickness, air permeability, stiffness, contact angle, water vapor permeability, wicking, drying rate, were conducted in accordance with the relevant standards. Comfort properties of fibers can be used in different parts of the garments depending on the intended use and purposes. Making the inner side of fabric as rcy-PA66 and the outer side of fabric as Umorfil gives cost saving production with improved comfort properties.