Moisture Flow through Blended Fabrics– Effect of Hydrophilicity

Moisture flow through blended material is a complexphenomenon. Clothing should possess good watervapour as well as liquid moisture transmissionproperty, for providing the thermophysiologicalclothing comfort. The clothing should take up themoisture from the skin as well as transmit it to theatmosphere. Higher hydrophilicity of a material isknown for good absorption, but how it really helps totransmit the moisture, has been studied in the presentwork. Polyester and viscose have been chosen as theblending fibers and 8 fabrics with different blendproportions were developed. Water vapourtransmission of the fabrics was measured using thePERMETEST. Liquid water transmission property ofthe fabrics was examined using a gravimetric inplanewicking tester and a vertical wicking tester.From the experimental result it has been observedthat water vapour permeability and absorbency of thematerial increases with the increase in number ofhydrophilic group in the material, but it has anadverse effect on the liquid moisture transmissionbehavior of the material. The vertical as well ashorizontal wicking of the material decreases with theincrease in viscose proportion in thepolyester/viscose blended fabrics.