Lusture, Tenacity / Strength,Elastic Recovery, Elongation, Density, Moisture Absorption, Dimensional,Stability, Acids, Alkalies, Effect of Sunlight, Effect of Flame etc. are general properties for textile fibres. These properties can be classified broadly into:
1. Physical Properties
- Length:
- Fineness: The fineness determines how many fibres are present in the cross section of a yarn of given thickness. Fiber fineness affects the material’s surface area, porosity, and filtration resistance, thereby indirectly determining the performance and applications of the fiber.
- Crimp: Crimp in a fiber is considered as the degree of deviation from linearity of a non straight fiber. Fiber crimp is the waviness of a fiber expressed as waves or crimps per unit length or as the difference between the lengths of the straightened and crimped fiber (expressed as a percentage of the straightened length).
- Maturity: Fibre maturity (in case of Cotton Fiber) is a fibre characteristic which expresses the relative degree of thickening of the fibre wall. In other words, it is the measure of primary and secondary wall thickness. A fiber will be matured if a high degree of wall thickening took place into the fiber content during cotton growth.
- Lusture: Luster refers to the degree of light that is reflected from the surface of a fiber or the degree of gloss or sheen that the fiber possesses. The inherent chemical and physical structure and shape of the fiber can affect the relative luster of the fiber. The lustre of textile fibres is due to a geometrical property of transparent cylindrical filaments with polished surfaces.
- Softness: softness can be defined as the opposite of stiffness which is measured by bending length.
- Resiliency: is ability to recover from deformation.
- Work of rupture: This is a measure of ‘toughness’ of the material. It is the energy or work required to break the specimen. The work of rupture will be proportional to the cross section of the specimen and to its length. Work of rupture, sometimes called toughness, is the energy needed to break a fiber or fabric. It gives a measure of the ability of the material to withstand sudden shocks of given energy.
- Density: Fibre density directly affects its strength.
- Appearance
- Flexibility
- Toughness
- Elongation
- Friction
- Tenacity
- Moisture regain and Moisture content
- Burning behavior
- Pilling behavior
- Strength
- Elasticity
- Extensibility
- Rigidity
- Static Electrification
- Thermal conductivity
2. Chemical Properties
- Action with acid
- Action with alkali
- Action with bleaching
- Action with organic solvent
- Sunlight preventive power
- Mildew preventive power
- Insects preventive power
- Heat preventive power
3. Thermal Properties
- Amorphousness
- Crystallinity