Investigating Moisture Management Property of a Bi-layer Fabric Through Nanofiber-coated PET as a Novel Sewing Thread: Vertical Wicking Test

One of the common moisture management methods is to use a multilayer fabric structure which is capable to facilitate moisture transfer through fabrics. The present work aims at investigating the rate of liquid transfer through nanofiber-coated yarn as the sewing threads attaching two layers of fabric (hydrophobic/hydrophilic). Visual observations were carried out to make a comparison among vertical wicking rises in the nanofiber-coated yarns and the conventional yarns, The effects of voltage parameters, number of filaments per yarn and solution concentration on the height of wicked water were investigated. The highest rate of wicking belonged to the PAN nanofiber-coated yarn prepared at a voltage of 18 kV. Then, two layers of hydrophobic and hydrophilic fabrics were joined using nanofiber-coated yarns as the sewing threads to investigate the rate of liquid transfer through bilayer fabrics. The average liquid transfer in fabric was obtained by estimating the rate of reduction of the size of water droplet which was placed on the sewn thread on the hydrophobic fabric. The size of each droplet was measured at every 0.03 s, accurately. The coated yarn in compare to the conventional yarn showed higher rates of moisture transfer from the hydrophobic to the hydrophilic fabric.