Design and development of functional fabrics with dust- and sound- absorbing properties

In an environmentally polluted environment, woven curtain fabrics that collect dust and pollen play an important health-protective role in interior decoration. However, devices or evaluation factors for measuring the dust adsorption ability of interior products have not been developed. To resolve this deficiency, we developed an apparatus that directly measures the dust adsorption and devised two test parameters (dust interrupting capability and fine dust adsorption capacity) for quantifying the dust adsorption. We also investigated the physical properties affecting the dust adsorption ability of fabrics with different denier weaves of air-textured yarns and draw-textured yarns, which adsorb dust in their fluffs and crimps, respectively. The air permeability and weight of the fabrics were strongly correlated with fine dust interrupting capability. The air permeability, dust adsorption, and interruption capability of the air-textured yarns largely depended on the loops formed by the overfeed rate in the weft direction. The strong sound-absorbing performance of the samples (especially at higher frequencies) was also obtained by loops, fluffs, and crimps of air-textured yarns and draw-textured yarns of fabrics. The best sound-absorbing performance was exhibited by S20, made from 760 D with many loops on the yarn surface.