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POROSITY MEASUREMENT OF MICROFILAMENT FABRICS BY IMAGE

PROCESSING AND PREDICTION OF AIR PERMEABILTY BY REGRESSION
ANALYSIS

Conference Paper · October 2018

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 7th International Technical Textiles Congress, 10-12 October 2018 Izmir-TURKEY

POROSITY MEASUREMENT OF MICROFILAMENT

FABRICS BY IMAGE PROCESSING AND
PREDICTION OF AIR PERMEABILTY
BY REGRESSION ANALYSIS
Elif GÜLTEKİN1, Maher ALSAYED1, Halil İbrahim ÇELİK1,
Hatice Kübra KAYNAK1, Osman BABAARSLAN2
1 Gaziantep University, Department of Textile Engineering, Turkey
2
Çukurova University, Department of Textile Engineering, Turkey

Corresponding author: tuluce@gantep.edu.tr

Abstract: Filament woven fabrics are widely used for the end uses such as
parachutes, sails, wind-proof clothes, sleeping bags, tents, filters and surgical textiles.
For these application areas, fabrics woven from microfilament yarns serve advantage
as good barrier effect owing to low level of porosity in the yarn structure. Air
permeability measurement is a widely used assessment for determination of barrier
effect and is strongly related with the porosity of the fabric. On the other hand, image
processing is a very effective technique for determination of the total porosity of
filament woven fabrics which is composed of porosity between the yarns and between
the filaments. Since, the porosity is determined by the light transmission. In this study,
polyester filament woven fabrics were produced with 1/4 satin weave structure, with
four different weft sett and using five different filament linear density in weft yarn. By
this way 20 woven fabrics are obtained. It is intended to use image processing
techniques to obtain porosity values of the fabric samples and then the regression
analysis were used to predict the air permeability value of fabrics by using porosity,
thickness and fabric mass parameters.
Key Words: air permeability, microfilament, woven fabric, image processing, filament
linear density

1. INTRODUCTION
Producing microfilaments (fibers have linear density below 1 dtex) are considered
as an important development in the synthetic fiber technology world, due to their
high performance and their very compact structure as a result of the existence of
the small pores between yarns and between the fibers of yarns. Fabrics which
are produced from microfilaments have a good barrier property. In addition, the
microfilaments provide light weight and durability. For these reasons, we can use
high density woven fabrics produced from microfilament yarns as surgical gowns,
parachutes, sails, wind proof clothes and tents, etc. [1].
Surgical gowns should provide us a barrier effect against the infection source and
also should give us a comfortable sensation. Bacteria and viruses are considered
as micro-organisms which are in charge of spreading the illnesses [2]. Another
important parameter to demonstrate effective barrier function and ease of use is

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the pore morphology of textile structures. High density woven fabrics produced
from microfilament yarns are suitable for providing a good barrier effect among
their small pores between filaments preventing micro-organism passage. The
factors which affect the barrier function are: the surface structure of the fabrics,
the number and the size of the continues pores through the fabrics, where the
pores of the fabric appear between yarns and between the filaments of the yarns
[3].
Surgical gown fabric should provive extremely low air permeability for a high level
of barrier effectiviness. In general, air permeability relays on the substance of
constitutional yarns and structural parameters of the fabric known as fabric
geometry. Air permeability is affected by the pore characteristics of the fabric that
is function of fabric geometry.
In the literature there are many studies focused on the influence of woven fabric
construction on their porosity and air permeability [5-18]. Among these studies,
some of them focused on determination of porosity by image processing
techniques. Previous investigations have been conducted to relieve the
evaluation of the barrier effect on surgical gowns, as well as on its relaxation
properties. For this reasons it is necessary to known the influences of the fabric’s
constructional parameters, such as the linear density of the filament yarns, type
of weave and fabric density on the pore structure. These studies show the pore
structure of commercially available woven fabrics by using the image processing
technique viewing the fabric cross-sections with different constructions. These
studies were predicted to facilitate the usage of suitable choice with filament
fineness, yarns and fabric weave parameters which improved barrier
performance [15-18]. But, in the literature there is a lack of information about
determination of porosity of high density woven fabrics and correlation between
porosity and air permeability. Apart from the literature, in this study it is aimed to
study the porosity of high density woven fabrics produced from microfilament
yarns for a usage area of surgical gowns. For this aim, polyester filament woven
fabrics were produced with 1/4 satin weave structure, with four different weft sett
and using five different filament linear density in weft yarn. By this way 20 woven
fabrics are obtained. It is intended to use image processing techniques to obtain
porosity values of the fabric samples and then the regression analysis were used
to predict the air permeability value of fabrics by using porosity, thickness and
fabric mass parameters.

2. MATERIALS AND METHOD

The air permeability of a fabric is defined as the amount of air passed over a
surface under a certain pressure difference in a unit time. The value of the air
permeability determines significantly the end-use performance of the fabrics [4].
In this study, polyester filament woven fabrics were used, it was aimed to
investigate the effects of filament linear density and weft sett on porosity and air
permeability properties of them.

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The chosen filament linear densities in weft direction were polyester

microfilament textured yarns of 110 dtex with 0.33, 0.57 and 0.76 dtex filament
linear densities and conventional polyester textured yarns of 110 dtex with 1.14
and 3.05 dtex filament linear densities. On the other hand, for warp yarn 83 dtex
polyester yarn with 1.14 dtex filament linear density was used.

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e)

Figure 1. Cross-sectional SEM views of weft yarns with (a) 0.33 dtex, (b) 0.57 dtex, (c) 0.76 dtex,
(d) 1.14 dtex, (e) 3.05 dtex filament linear density with 1720 times magnification

It can be inferred from Figure 1 that the higher filament linear density means
having lower number of filaments in yarn cross section. The texturizing process
was applied to the yarns in order to increase the bulkiness of the yarns. After this
process, it seen from SEM views that the cross section geometry of the filaments
changed from round shape to the cornered one due to the applied heat and
mechanical forces. In order to investigate the influence of filament fineness on
fabric performance, the yarn samples were used for woven fabric production with
the same weave type of 4/1 Satin. Each fabric sample was woven with four
different weft setts; 43 wefts/cm, 45 wefts/cm, 47 wefts/cm and 49 wefts/cm. Our
20 woven fabric samples were produced with warp sett of 85 warps/cm. Thermal
fixation process was applied to samples at 195ºC with 25m/min process speed.
Structural properties namely, weft sett, fabric weight, fabric thickness and yarn
crimp of sample fabrics were determined according to TS 250 EN 1049-2 (1996),

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TS EN 12127(1999), TS 7128 EN ISO 5084 (1998) and TS 254(1989),

respectively. Structural properties of the sample fabrics are given in Table 1.
Table 1. Structural properties of sample fabrics

Weft yarn Fabric

Weft sett, Fabric weight, Weft Warp
filament linear thickness,
wefts/cm g/m² crimp, % crimp, %
density, dtex mm
0.33 43 130 0.22 6 5
0.57 43 130 0.22 6 5
0.76 43 128 0.22 6 5
1.14 43 129 0.22 6 5
3.05 43 129 0.23 6 5
0.33 45 133 0.23 6 5
0.57 45 133 0.22 6 5
0.76 45 132 0.22 6 5
1.14 45 131 0.22 6 5
3.05 45 132 0.23 6 5
0.33 47 136 0.23 6 5
0.57 47 136 0.22 6 5
0.76 47 134 0.23 6 5
1.14 47 132 0.23 6 5
3.05 47 133 0.23 6 5
0.33 49 138 0.23 6 5
0.57 49 140 0.23 6 5
0.76 49 138 0.23 6 5
1.14 49 139 0.22 6 5
3.05 49 136 0.23 6 5

To get knowledge about barrier effectiveness of polyester filament woven fabrics

and analyze them to reveal the effects of filament fineness and weft sett, air
permeability test was conducted. All fabric samples were conditioned according
to TS EN ISO 139 (2008) before the tests and the tests were performed in the
standard atmosphere of 20±2ºC and 65±4% relative humidity. Air permeability
was determined according TS 391 EN ISO 9237 (1999) with ten measurements
from each sample, by a digital air permeability test device at 200 Pa pressure
drop and 20 cm2 test area.
The porosity is one of the most important parameter that affects the air
permeability behavior of the fabrics [20]. So, the porosity properties of the fabric
samples were determined to deduce the relationship between air permeability
and porosity. In this study, image processing technique was used to measure the
porosity values. Some different approaches were offered for porosity
measurement with image processing method [15-18]. Generally there are two
different lightening systems; the back lightening and the front one in the literature
[21]. For this study, the back lightening system was used and was installed under
the fabric samples. The camera was placed on the top of sample so that the
amount of light intensity that passes through the fabric structure could be
detected. The image processing method is based on measurement of the light

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intensity transmitted through the fabric structure. The pixel values of the image
frame are assigned according to the light transmission level so that pore regions
are seen bright while the regions covered by fibers are seen dark. In this study,
the porosity of the fabric samples was determined by using image processing
algorithm. The image frames were acquired by using a digital microscope
camera. Ten image frames were acquired from different place of each sample in
order to obtain an average porosity value. So, totally 200 sample image frames
were processed. The porosity ratio is determined as average of ten
measurements of each sample. The image frames get in RGB format were
convert to 8 bit gray level images. The image frames were applied the low pass
Gaussian filter. The Gaussian filter makes the image frame smoother and
removes certain types of noise [11]. The filtered image is then applied binarization
process. Each pixel of the image frame is converted to black or white color
according to being below or above threshold level. The threshold level is
calculated by using Otsu method [12]. If the pixel value of the image frame is
below threshold level, the gray level value of that pixel is allocated as “0”.
Otherwise, it is set as “1”. The pixel value “1” corresponds to white and “0”
corresponds to black. In the binary image frame, the white regions indicate the
pores and the black regions indicate the fibers. In order to clear the area of pores,
morphological operations; opening and erosion are applied in sequence. Opening
is a morphological operation of erosion followed by dilation with the same
structuring element. The opening operation removes small, isolated objects from
the foreground of an image, place them in the background. It smoothes the
contour of a binary object, breaks the narrow joining regions and eliminates the
thin protrusions. In the erosion operation, the center pixel of the structuring
element is placed on each foreground pixel value 1. If any of the neighborhood
pixels are background pixels value 0, then the foreground pixel is switched to
background. Finally, the pore areas (white regions) of the binary are labeled as
seen in Figure 2. The porosity value of the sample was calculated as the
percentage of white regions to whole image frame size.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Porosity Results
The general accepted knowledge about the relationship between the porosity and
fabric density is that when weft or warp setts of fabric structure increases, the
yarns get closer to each other and so the porosity of the fabric decreases. But
these results are obtained with the fabric types with low or medium density.
Theoretical or experimental porosity measurement methods are not valid for high
density fabrics which are woven from microfilament yarns. Since, there is high
number of filaments in yarn cross-section with microfilaments than conventional
filaments. Microfilaments occupy higher area and provide less spaces between
each other. The higher compactness and small pores between fibers and yarns
in the high density fabric structure leads to lower liquid or gas flow and less light
transmittance. Therefore, it is very difficult to study on the porosity measurement

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of high density microfilament fabrics. The porosity values of the samples obtained
by image processing technique is given in Figure 3. As given in Figure 3, there
is no significant change between the porosity values of the fabric samples with
0.33 and 0.57 dtex filaments at different weft sett values. It is considered that the
lower filament linear density in yarn cross-section cause very small pores in fabric
structure and this situation compensates the effect of weft sett change on fabric
porosity. When the filament linear density is increased to 0.76 dtex, the porosity
difference is observed in accordance with weft sett change. The effect of the weft
sett on fabric porosity can be evaluated for the samples with 1.14 and 3.05 dtex
filament linear density. However, there is no regular relationship between different
weft sett values. Except for the fabrics which produced with 0.33, 0.57 and 0,76
dtex microfilament yarns, the effect of weft sett was obviously seen on the fabrics
which produced with 1.14 and 3.05 dtex microfilament yarns. After the filament
fineness of 0.76 dtex, for each weft sett the porosity values of the fabric increases
when the filament linear density increases.

(a) RGB image (b) 8 bit Gray level image

(c) Binary image (d) Pore labeled image

Figure 2. Porosity algorithm application
3.2 Air Permeability Results
The target of this study is to find out the effects of filament linear density on air
permeability of microfilament (0.33 dtex, 0.57 dtex and 0.76 dtex) and
conventional filament (1.14 dtex and 3.05 dtex) ranges. In addition, this issue was
stated by satin structure by applying different weft setts. In this study, to get
reliable samples we obtained our 20 woven fabrics systematically.

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Figure 3. Porosity of satin fabric

It is clear from Figure 4 that the weft sett values cause an obvious decrease of
air permeability as a result of that, the lower weft sett provide higher air
permeability. On the other hand, the higher filament linear density results in
higher air permeability. As mentioned above, as the filament becomes coarser,
air permeability becomes higher because more spaces in the cross section are
obtained. On the other hand, air permeability gets decreased with finer filaments
because there is less space within the yarns.

Figure 4. Air permeability of samples

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For statistical analyses SPSS 21.0 statistical package program was used. For
this issue correlation analyses were applied to air permeability, porosity, fabric
weight and fabric thickness. The results are given in Table 2. According to
correlation analysis, it is seen that there is a strong and positive correlation (r =
0.877) between fabric porosity and air permeability, at 1% significance level. In
the view of thickness effect, it can also be said that there is a low and positive
correlation (r = 0.377) between fabric thickness and air permeability. The analysis
indicates low and positive correlation between fabric thickness and air
permeability. The correlation between the fabric weight and air permeability is
determined as low and the relationship is negative (r=-0.314). That means when
the fabric weight increases, the air permeability of fabric decreases.

Table 2. Correlation analysis between air permeability and fabric structural features
Air Fabric Fabric
Porosity
permebility thickness weight
Pearson
Correlation 1 0.877** 0.377 -0.314
Porosity
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000 0.102 0.177
N 20 20 20 20
Pearson
Air Correlation 0.877** 1 0.283 -0.391
permebility Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000 0.226 0.088
N 20 20 20 20
Pearson
Fabric Correlation 0.377 0.283 1 0.378
thickness Sig. (2-tailed) 0.102 0.226 0.100
N 20 20 20 20
Pearson
Fabric Correlation -0.314 -0.391 0.378 1
weight Sig. (2-tailed) 0.177 0.088 0.100
N 20 20 20 20
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
b. Cannot be computed because at least one of the variables is constant.

Table 3. Multiple linear regression analysis for fabric structural features affecting air permeability
Coefficientsa
Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig.
Coefficients Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) -605.069 160.449 -3.771 0.002
Porosity 82.850 14.966 0.820 5.536 0.000
Fabricthickness 112.567 588.941 0.029 0.191 0.851
Fabricweight -.804 0.824 -0.145 -0.977 0.343
a. Dependent Variable: AirPermebility

According to linear regression analysis (Table 3), the regression equation is

obtained as below. When the fabric structural parameters; fabric weight,
thickness and porosity are evaluated together in multiple linear regression
analysis in terms of effect on the air permeability performance, it can be

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 7th International Technical Textiles Congress, 10-12 October 2018 Izmir-TURKEY

concluded that the porosity has the most significant effect. The effect of the
thickness on air permeability performance is obviously less than porosity. The
fabric weight has negative effect on air permeability performance of fabric
samples.
The regression analysis was used to predict the air permeability value of fabrics
by using porosity, thickness and fabric mass. Obtained regression equation is
given below.
𝑚𝑚
𝐴𝑖𝑟 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 ( ) = −605.069 + 82.850 𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 + 112.567 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 − 0.804 𝑓𝑎𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑐 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠
𝑠

4. CONCLUSION
Microfilament fabrics are exposed to various environmental conditions according
to their usage area. Barrier effect parameter which is crucial for surgical gowns
produced from high density microfilament fabrics is the uppermost characteristic.
Since this characteristic property defines the ability of protecting the user from
various bacteria and microorganisms. Pore morphology of textile structure is a
very important parameter for high density fabrics.
There is a strong relationship between air permeability and porosity. We clearly
observed that filament linear density and weft sett of fabrics have considerable
effects on air permeability of fabrics. Higher porosity in fabric structure provides
an easier passage of air through the fabric and air permeability increase. In other
words, higher barrier effect or lower air permeability is possible with lower porosity
which can be obtained by low amount of pores between the yarns and also
between the filaments in yarn structure.
According to the results of our study, image processing is a very effective
technique for determination of the total porosity of filament woven fabrics which
is composed of porosity between the yarns and between the filaments.

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