DETERMINING

FABRIC
QUALITY
Prepared by:
Riza Leigh I. Figues
• When choosing the fabric for a garment,
its important to keep a close eye on
quality.
• Garments made from a lower quality fabric
may look beautiful on the rack but feel
awkward to wear or lose their beauty after
just a few washes.
• The quality of a product is checked before
it is put into a large scale usage.
• The quality of a product, its performance,
and its reliability are the key factors while
testing is being performed.
• Quality assurance testing helps the
product in the long run to establish
credibility.
 TEXTILE TESTING
• Textile testing is a key in gauging product
quality, ensuring regulatory compliance
and assessing the performance of textile
materials. 
•  It is a vital basic tool during the processing
of a textile raw material into the product. It
also helps the distributors and consumer to
determine the end product’s quality.
 Importance of Textile Testing
• To ensure the product quality
• To control the manufacturing process
• For customer satisfaction and retention
• Good reputation (brand image) among
consumers
 FABRIC PILLING
• Pilling is a fabric surface characterized by
little pills of entangled fiber clinging to the
cloth surface and giving the garment
unsightly appearance.
• The pills are formed during wear and
washing by the entanglement of loose
fibers which protrude from the fabric
surface.
 FABRIC WEIGHT AND
CONSTRUCTION
• There is a wide range of fabrics in terms of
fabric designs, fiber content, fabric
thickness and fabric quality.
• Fabric construction and weight are the two
most essential fabric parameters
(specification).
 Fabric construction for woven fabric: 

Under fabric construction, you have to

– Mention Ends per inch (EPI) and Picks per
inch (PPI)
– Mention count of the warp yarn and weft yarn.
– You can also mention the width of the fabric
you need for the order for the maximum
utilization of the fabric. This is not part of
fabric construction.
 Fabric weight: 
• Weight in grams of one square meter of
fabric. It is called as fabric GSM (grams
per square meter). Fabric fineness
depends on the fabric GSM.
 How to Calculate Fabric
GSM?
• Apparatus required
-Round GSM cutter and GSM Pad
-Weighing Balance.
• Method:
- Cut 5 swatches from the different place of the fabric.
- Weight all test swatches accurately and calculate
average weight of swatches.
- Multiply the average weight of swatches by 100 to
calculate GSM of the sample fabric. (Normally, the
area of round GSM cutter is 1/100 square meters.)
 By Using Formula:
• No need to worry if you don’t have a GSM
cutter. You can still measure fabric weight
per square meter by using following
formula. 
•
 FABRIC ABRASION RESISTANCE
• Abrasion is just one aspect of wear and is
the rubbing away of the component fibres
and yarns of the fabric.
• It is a series of repeated applications of
stress; therefore a capacity to absorb
punishment is required to the fibres.
Inherent fibre properties such as work of
rupture may give a high resistance to
abrasion.
Abrasion Tester
• It is easily understood that the more is no.
of abrasion cycle the more will be the wt.
loss of fabric. That is when a fabric is used
more it losses its weight more.
• Depending on yarn quality, fabric design
and above all end use this loss may be less
or more, again may be quickly or lately. But
indeed the fabrics will loss its weight and
serviceability.
 FABRIC STRENGTH
• The strength of a fabric gives us an idea
how much load we can apply on it and it is
very important for fabric.
• The strength of the fabric is very necessary
for it because if the fabric strength is not
good then it will break with excessive
tensile force and thus the dresses
produced may tear with the outside force.
Fabric Strength Tester
• Strength is a measure of the steady force
necessary to break a material and is
measured in pound. The m/c works
in constant rate of extension principle.
When the tension is high on the fabric then
the fabric breaks.
 a. Tensile Strength
• Test to determine the breaking strength
and elongation of most textile fabrics. (Not
recommended for knit fabrics or fabrics with high stretch
value.)
• To determine tensile strength of fabric
two type of test are done. They are:
-Strip Test (British Standard)
-Grab Test (US standard)
Strip Test
• The strip test is a tensile test in which the
full width of the test specimen is gripped in
the tensile grip jaws of a universal testing
machine.
• During this test, tensile force is applied on
the fabric specimen until it ruptures.

- Mechanical properties to analyze include the force at

rupture and the elongation (expressed as percentage) at
maximum force and/or at rupture.
Strip test
Grab Test
• A grab test is a tensile test in which the
center part of the specimen width is
gripped in the tensile grip jaws.
• Due to the way the sample is gripped,
edge effects, which may cause inaccurate
data for fabrics, are eliminated.
- Similar to the strip test method, tensile force is applied
to the fabric specimen until rupture and maximum force is
recorded. Fabric specimens most often tested using the
grab method are woven and non-woven textile fabrics.
Grab test
 b. Tear Strength
• Tear strength is the capacity of a material
to withstand the tearing force required to
propagate a tear after its initiation.
• Force required to propagate an existing
tear is measured. As a part of the
preparation of fabric specimen, a cut is in
them and the force is required to extend
the cut is measured.
Tongue Tear Method
• The tongue tear method is often used to
measure the tear force and the tear
strength of a fabric specimen.
• This method, requires a specific sample
preparation where the rectangular fabric
specimen is cut to form two tongues on
each end which are then placed on upper
and lower grips.
• Once tensile force is applied, the fabric
specimen will tear along the mid-line
between the tongues.
• Fabrics to be tested using the tongue tear
method include those made from acetate,
acrylic, cotton, flax, nylon, olefin,
polyester, rayon, silk, and wool.
Tongue tear fabric testing method on
an ADMET eXpert 7600
Trapezoidal Tear
• Trapezoidal tear is another tear strength
test that uses a specimen prepared as an
isosceles trapezoid with a small cut on one
side.
• When testing starts and force is applied,
the trapezoid tear produces tension along a
reasonably defined course such that the
tear propagates across the width of the
specimen.
• This test method applies to most fabrics
such as woven fabrics, air bag fabrics,
blankets, napped, knitted, layered, and
pile fabrics.

Trapezoidal tear
testing on an
eXpert 7600
Wrinkle Resistance/Recovery
• The resistance to crushing and wrinkling of
fabrics is one of the most important
performance characteristics of apparel fabrics
in general and suiting fabrics in particular.
- A fabric’s tendency to wrinkle – or not wrinkle –
depends on several factors. Typically, weight, weave
complexity, composition, and treatment (if any)
dictate the level of a fabric’s wrinkle resistance.
• As a general rule, the more weight, the
more treatment, and the more complex the
weave construction, the more resistant to
wrinkling it will be, and vice versa.
• Several of these factors are often at play
in a single fabric, and certain combinations
can help increase a fabric’s wrinkle
resistance. 
DETERMINATION OF FABRIC
CREASE RECOVERY BY
SHIRLEY CREASE RECOVERY
TESTER
• Crease is a fold in fabric introduced
unintentionally at some stages of processing.
Crease or crushing of textile material is a
complex effect involving tensile, compressive,
flexing and torsional stresses.
• Crease recovery is a fabric property which
indicates the ability of fabric to go back to its
original position after creasing.
Crease Recovery Tester
• Crease Resistance :
•  The resistance to creasing of textile
material during use is known as crease
resistance.
•  Amongst the textile materials the
decreasing order of crease resistance is
wool, silk, acetate rayon, viscose, rayon,
cuprammonium rayon, cotton, flax etc.  
• Crease recovery : 
• It is the property of a textile material by
which it can return to its former shape after
being creased.
• The measure of crease resistance is
specified quantitatively in terms of crease
recovery angle.  The crease recovery of a
fabric can be increased by resin treatment.
• Crease recovery is determined depending
upon the recovery angle. If the angle is 0o
then recovery is zero and if the angle is
180o then recovery is full.
 COLORFASTNESS OF FABRIC
• Color fastness refers to the resistance of
color to fade or bleed of a dyed or printed
textile materials to various types of
influences e.g. water, light, rubbing,
washing, perspiration etc. to which they
are normally exposed in textile
manufacturing and in daily use. 
• Color fastness is one of the important
factors in case of buyers demand. The
outstandingly important property of a dyed
material is the fastness of the shade of
color.

Colorfastness
Test
Standards of Color Fastness:
• 1. AATCC (American Association of Textile Chemists
and Colorists) technical manual:
Describes 66 numbers of different color fastness tests.
•
2. SDC (Society of Dyers and Colorists):
In 1927, SDC (Europe) made fastness test committee.
•
3. ISO(International Organization for Standardization):
In 1947, ISO made color sub committee. ISO also grades
the fastness:
For light fastness: 1~8
For other fastness: 1~5
Importance of color fastness:
• Textile fabric has many properties.
Colorfastness property is one of the most
important properties of them.
• It is a property of a colorant which allows it
to retain its different characteristics despite
degradation conditions such as exposure
to light and dry cleaning.
• Product performance and evaluation to
determine if the fabric is suitable for the
intended end use.
• It is a identity for fabric. If colorfastness is
good then fabric quality high and if poor
fastness property then fabric quality is bad.
- So, colorfastness is the important factor for the buyer to
justify which fabric is bad and which is better.
 Different Types of Color Fastness
• There are various types of color fastness test for fabric. 
Important color fastness tests are given below:

• Color Fastness to Washing

• Color Fastness to light
• Color Fastness to perspiration
• Color Fastness to Water
• Color Fastness to Rubbing
• Color fastness to sea water
• Color fastness to hot pressing
• Color fastness to chlorinated water
Crocking
• The rubbing off of colors is called as
crocking. 
• It is simply the transfer of color from a
fabric onto another white test fabric. The
more color is transferred, the more the
fabric "crocks".
• Crocking determines the amount of color
transferred from the surface of colored
textile material to other surfaces by
rubbing.
Bleeding
• Bleeding is a similar problem to crocking,
but occurs when dyes transfer from one
fabric to another when fabrics are wet.
• Crocking occurs when the dye is
physically rubbed off.   Bleeding is when
dye comes of the fabric when dye comes
into contact with liquid.
ISO TEXTILE TESTING
STANDARDS
 What is ISO?
• ISO is an acronym that stands for the
International Organization for
Standardization.
• The term comes from a Greek word ISOS,
meaning equal.
• The International Organization for
Standardization is a group of people from many
industries who work to create world-wide uniform
industrial standards.
• The standards help insure that products,
regardless of where they were made, are reliable,
safe and of acceptable quality.
- In general, ISO standards cover considerations like regulatory
issues and management systems. They assess a company's ability
to meet customer requirements and offer guidelines to improve
performance.
• Textiles come from all over the world. They
might be formed in one country, dyed in
another, and made into finished goods in yet
another.
• To ensure that the same practices are used in
this complicated international process, many
companies follow agreed-upon standards
related to industrial processes and the goods
produced by them. These standards are
called ISO textile testing standards.
• Within the textile industry, following ISO
standards can help to ensure consistent quality
of the raw materials being used to make textiles,
which in turn improves the final product.
• Adhering to ISO standards can also help lower
operating costs and ensure quality management.
• Following ISO standards often involves
inspection and testing at each stage of a
process.
• But ISO standards aren't mandatory.
They're guidelines, and some companies
only use them for materials and goods that
are exported to places like the United
States, where strict rules covering textile
products and safety concerns are in place.