Abstract
An apparatus for cold feel test of fabrics was designed in our laboratory. Seventeen chromel-alumel thermocouples connected in series were sandwiched between acrylic resin films, and bonded on a copper plate. The surface temperature of this copper plate was used as the hot plate in the apparatus and was controlled at 35°C with a heat source placed under it. Cooling curves showing the temperature change of the thermocouples just after putting a fabric on the hot plate were recorded under various conditions for different types of fabric.The results obtained are summarized as follows.
1. Abrupt temperature change at initial few seconds can be measured exactly with this apparatus.
2. The cooling curves recorded with this apparatus show a little increase of the surface temperature in a few seconds and seem to represent the real cold feel of a fabric at handling. Cold feel of a fabric may be estimated from the maximum cooling rate and maximum temperature drop obtained from this cooling curve.
3. Cooling curves are affected by the material of the plate placed at the back of the fabric, the contact pressure between the hot plate and the fabric, and ambient relative humidity.
The true contact area between the hot plate and a fabric is very small (0.005% of the apparent contact area). Therefore, the increase of the cooling rate by increasing the contact pressure may be caused mainly by the decrease of air gap between the hot plate and the fabric.
4. To clarify the relation between this testing method and conventional handling test, more experiment and further theoretical consideration of this mechanism are required.
