Effect of Seam Stabilizing Tapes on the Recovery Properties of Sewn Fabrics

Abstract- Maintaining and improving the garment quality are the important topics in the textile and apparel industry. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of some textile tapes on elastic properties as we ll as dynamic recovery of the seams and enhance the shape stability. Three samples were prepared, namely weft knitted sewn fabrics without any stabilizing tape, and weft knitted sewn fabrics stabilized with bias woven fabric, and with stretch ribbons. The results show that hysteresis area of the seam tensile curves decreased by increasing the loading cycles, and dynamic work recovery stabilized after the third cycle. The tensile stress of all sewn samples in the course direction is significantly less than the stress value in the wale direction. It is found that the seams stabilized with stretch ribbons have the highest dynamic work recovery (~40-70%). Also, when the seam position and the loading direction aligned, the dynamic work recovery of the stabilized samples increased. The recovery behavior of the stabilized sewn fabrics was also simulated by mechanical models consisting of spring and dashpot elements. The threeelement model, consisting of the Maxwell body paralleled with a non-linear spring, properly estimated the force–strain curves of the stabilized sewn fabrics under cyclic loading