Identification of the most significant comfort factors for textiles from processing mechanical, handfeel, fabric construction, and perceived tactile comfort data

Abstract

Engineered fabrics are desired for military protective clothing applications. Such fabrics, exhibiting high tactile comfort, can be computationally designed. Through the use of an extensive database that contains handfeel, mechanical, construction, and tactile comfort data for fabrics, desired comfort can be predicted by measuring a limited number of properties. Output systems can be optimized to exhibit the highest level of comfort by engineering a fabric with specific properties. Using an extensive fabric database, we identify the most significant handfeel, mechanical, and construction properties influencing tactile fabric comfort. This is done through the use of regression analysis of handfeel, mechanical, construction fabric properties, and perceived tactile comfort, using B un-standardized coefficients and Beta standardized coefficients.