Water Transport Along Textile Fibers as Measured by an Electrical Capacitance Technique

A new experimental apparatus has been developed for studying water transport behavior along a bundle consisting of a few textile fibers. In order to detect the small amount of water that travels along fibers, we used an electrical capacitance technique and constructed an apparatus with a specially designed electric amplifier circuit and condenser electrodes between which sample fibers are set. We studied nylon, polyester (PET), and rayon fibers and found that there exists a minimum (critical) number of constituting fibers (CNF) when water transport occurs, depending on the fiber type. These CNF values were ten, ten, and two for nylon, PET, and rayon, respectively. We discussed these results on the basis of the wettability of the fibers.