Abraded fabrics exhibiting excellent hand properties and simultaneously high fill strength retention

#The inventive method provides highly desirable hand to various different types of fabrics through the initial immobilization of individual fibers within target fabrics and subsequent treatment through abrasion, sanding, or napping of at least a portion of the target fabric. Such a procedure includes “nicking” the immobilized fibers thereby permitting the fibers to produce a substantially balanced strength of the target fabric in the fill and warp directions while also providing the same degree of hand improvements as obtained with previous methods. Furthermore, this process also provides the unexpected improvement of non-pilling to synthetic fibers as the “nicking” of the immobilized fibers results in the lack of unraveling of fibers and thus the near impossibility of such fibers balling together to form unwanted pills on the fabric surface. Fabrics treated by this process are also contemplated within this invention.

#Materials such as fabrics are characterized by a wide variety of functional and aesthetic characteristics. Of those characteristics, a particularly important feature is fabric surface feel or “hand.” The significance of a favorable hand in a fabric is described and explained in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,918,795 and 4,837,902, both to Dischler, the teachings of which are both entirely incorporated herein by reference.

#Favorable hand characteristics of a fabric are usually obtained upon conditioning of prepared textiles (i.e., fabrics which have been de-sized, bleached, mercerized, and dried). Prior methods of prepared-fabric conditioning have included roughening of the finished product with textured rolls or pads. It has now been discovered, surprisingly, that such conditioning would favorably be performed while the target fabric is in its greige state or is unprepared. The conditioning of such fabrics provides heretofore unknown benefits in improvements in overall fabric strength, and the like (as discussed in greater detail below). Of great importance and necessity then within the textile treatment industry is a procedure through which greige or unfinished fabrics can be treated and subsequently finished which provides desirable hand to the target textile and does not adversely impact the ability for dyeing, decorating, and the like, the textile at a future point in time. Such processes have not been taught nor fairly suggested within the pertinent art. Thus, there is no prior teaching nor fair suggestion within the pertinent art which has accorded highly effective and easily duplicated textile hand improvements to greige goods and unfinished textiles.

#FIG. 1 is a side schematic view of an apparatus useful in performing the instant invention, illustrating one manner in which a fabric may be processed according to the invention.

#The primary object of this invention is therefore to provide improved sueded hand to greige or unprepared fabrics while also retaining a balanced strength over the entire fabric structure. It is thus an additional advantage of this invention to provide such a method that is highly cost-effective and enhances subsequent fabric processing such as de-sizing, mercerization, dyeing, and the like. Another object of this invention to be provide a method of improving the hand of unfinished fabrics comprising synthetic fibers which simultaneously substantially eliminates pilling on the fabric surface. Yet another advantage of this invention is to provide a sueded cotton/polyester blended fabric wherein the sueded surface is dominated by relatively soft polyester fibers. These and other advantages will be in part apparent and in part pointed out below.

#In order to improve the hand of fabrics in a manner which is consistent with warm weather wear, the constituent fibers must be treated in a manner which provides a consistently short pile, so that a stagnant layer of insulating air is not trapped at the fabric surface. It has been found that, by first immobilizing the fibers constituting the fabric with a temporary coating, followed by an abrasive treatment of the fabric surface, and then removal of the temporary coating, a fabric of unique aesthetic and practical characteristics is obtained. Compared to a fabric which has been sanded or napped, a fabric treated by the present inventive method is cooler to the touch, smoother to the hand, and dramatically more resistant to pilling. To understand how these advantageous characteristics are obtained, it is useful to compare the action of card wire on a film of polyester (e.g., Mylar□) to the action of the wire on a polyester fabric. When card wire is dragged across a Mylar□ film under pressure, many small scratches are seen to develop in the surface, due to the combination of high pressure at the wire tip combined with the high hardness of the wire relative to polyester. When the wire is similarly dragged across the polyester fabric, scratches are generally not found since the motion of the fibers relative to each other allows the stresses to be dissipated before abrasive wear occurs. Also, the interaction of wire and fiber typically tensions the fiber and draws it away from the yarn surface. When the fabric subsumes the characteristics of a film, scratching of the fiber surface does then occur, and pulling out of fibers from the yarn is prevented. Thus, the fabric is transformed into film (or composite), abraded, and then transformed back into a fabric. What would be linear scratches on a film appear as nicks of various sizes on the surface fibers, including nicks which entirely cut through some of the fibers. The cut fiber ends will be released during subsequent processing (e.g., de-sizing) to form a pile which is uniformly short. Short fibers resist forming pills because the number of adjacent fibers available for entanglement is limited to those few within reach of each other. “Nicks” on these fibers serve as stress risers, allowing the fiber to break off during the kind of bending that occurs during pill formation. Since only the surface fibers have been so weakened, the bulk of the fabric strength has been retained as compared to chemical treatments, which necessarily weaken the entire fabric structure.

#The term “nicking” basically encompasses the creation of cuts at random locations on individual fibers thus providing stress risers on the individual fibers. The immobilization of these fibers thus increases frictional contact between the individual fibers and prevents movement of the fibers during the sanding, abrading, or napping procedure. The abrading, sanding, or napping of non-immobilized fibers which move during treatment can result in the relative motion of the fibers and the pulling out of long fibers as the fibers interact with the abrasive or napping media. Such a process does provide improvements in the hand of such fabrics; however, the filling strength of the fabric may be sacrificed and the ability of the fabric to trap unwanted air (thus producing a warmer” fabric) is increased. Therefore, the inventive process comprises first immobilizing the surface fibers of a fabric with a temporary coating; second, treating the immobilized surface fibers by abrasion, sanding, or napping in order to cut and “nick” the fibers; and third, removing, in some manner, the temporary coating.