On the Force Required to Thrust a Sewing Needle through a Cloth

Abstract

The force required to thrust a sewing needle slowly through a cloth was measured, and the results were discussed in relation to their correlation with the texture of the sample. In the initial stage, the needle point pushes up the cloth, without passing through it, into a conical shape. The force imposed on the needle is the recovery force of the deformed cloth, and hence depends on the elastic moduli as well as the geometry of the sample. At the moment when the needle point penetrates the cloth, the force goes rapidly down and then up gradually until the diameter of the needle at the contact portion reaches its maximum. In this process the recovery force of the cloth balances with, and hence equals, the frictional force that is generated on the contact area by the woven threads thrust away by the needle. Therefore the force of thrust at this stage may reflect some mechanical properties of the threads woven in the cloth, such as the lateral compressibility, the rigidity of local bend, and the stickiness at the crossing areas.