Application of Kawabata evaluation system for the tactile properties of woven silk fabrics in textile industry

Thailand is one of well-known countries for the silk fabric production. However, there are just few studies focusing on tactile properties of silk fabrics. This study collected forty-one machined-woven silk fabrics manufactured in Thailand, Japan, China, Korea, Italy, France, India and USA. The fabrics were classified into 4 groups categorized by the fabric weight according to the "silk fabric" industrial product standard of the Thai Industrial Standards Institute (TISI) 176-2540 (≤ 90 g/m², 91-120 g/m², 121-160 g/m², >160 g/m²). Mechanical properties of the silk fabrics were measured by the Kawabata evaluation system for fabric (KES-F). Correlations between fabric weight groups were analyzed to investigate the relationship among properties. The results showed significant effect of the fabric weight (per unit area) on only compression resilience (RC) and thickness. The thickness was also correlated with the compression properties (WC, RC), the bending rigidity (B) of the warp direction and the surface roughness (SMD). Moreover, the air permeability was associated with the coefficient of friction (MIU), the shearing properties (G, 2HG, 2HG5) and the tensile properties of the weft direction (EM, LT, WT). The total hand value (THV) was calculated by using the Kawabata hand evaluations KN-201-LDY for women's thin dress fabric. The fabrics with the THV scores above 4 showed high quality for women's dresses. The principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to examine the relationship between the mechanical properties and the fabrics. The results showed that the high-quality fabrics were plotted near each other as a group and related to some properties such as the coefficient of friction (MIU), the extensibility (EM), the tensile energy (WT) of the weft direction and the linearity of compression (LC). Finally, the biplot graph of the fabric distribution can be a guideline for a variety of applications. The fabrics for apparels mainly located in the lower-left quadrant while those located in the upper quadrant were appropriate for home textiles.