Tearing properties of upholstery flocked fabrics

We have studied the tearing strength of substrate woven fabric, substrate with adhesive, flocked fabric and washed flocked fabric on dry and wet conditions. The tensile strength of the rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabrics in dry and wet conditions were also researched, and a statistical model was developed for the analysis of the tearing behavior of these fabric forms.

Warp and weft tearing strengths of rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabric in wet conditions were slightly higher than those in dry conditions. The reason was partly the high wet strength characteristic of cotton fiber and partly the lubrication effect of acrylic adhesive under wet conditions. Although the weft density of the substrate fabric was around half of its warp density, there was a small difference between warp and weft tearing strengths of dry and wet states of rubbed flocked fabric. This was attributed to the dense structure having less free space and less ultimate deformation potential and ultimately reducing the tearing strength.

When the stroke number increased, the warp and weft tearing strengths of dry and wet states of rubbed flocked fabric generally decreased. It was also found that the stroke number of wet rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabric was low in comparison with stroke number of dry rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabric. The reason was that the wet acrylic adhesive had poor properties.

The results from the regression model were compared with the measured values mainly by the mean absolute percent error parameter which enables us to conclude that the developed regression equations explain the tearing strength of flocked fabrics.