Shrinkage of Thick Cotton Fabrics

Abstract

Thick cotton fabrics, recently come into many uses, bring about some troubles in washing because of shrinking. In this paper, the differences between the shrinkage caused by washing and those achieved by the common conditioning methods, for eight thick cotton fabrics and two polyester-rayon blended fabrics are investigated. The conditioning methods used are A. steamironing, B. ironing after water-spraying and C. ironing after soaking in water.
The shrinkage of the samples is less than 1% for the first method, and less than 2% for the second method. The amount of water sprayed over a sample and the time for resting the sprayed sample have no considerable effect on the shrinkage of the sample. For the last method, the shrinkage of the samples is about or less than 2% and the higher temperature the larger shrinkage. The time for soaking the sample in water does not influence the shrinkage of the sample.
The shrinkage superior to that observed with any conditioning methods examined is obtained from washing, and the shrinkage increases with increasing time of washing.
Thus, it seems that the conditioning methods are not enough to pre-shrink the thick cotton fabrics to prevent them from the shrinking in washing.