The Relationship Between the Structural Geometry of a Textile Fabric and Its Physical Properties

This paper is primarily concerned with the mechanics of textile fabric abrasion. However, considerable attention is devoted to the theory of friction and the theory of cutting of crystalline solids. This is intended as a framework for the study of visco-elastic fibrous materials. Such an approach seems logical in view of the significant part which both the elastic and plastic properties of metals play in the phenomena of rubbing and cutting. It is particularly significant that these studies on metals often report the use of solid high polymers as models and experimental materials. It has taken over 100 years of research on the part of physicists and engineers to determine the nature and causes of friction in crystalline solids, and only in the last 15 years have they made progress in the study of surface cutting. Within the last few years several workers in the field of fibrous high polymers have recognized the applicability of the findings of crystalline-solid research as related to the study of friction, but no one in the fiber field appears to have profited from available infor mation dealing with surface cutting. It would seem that more use should be made in textile research of the experimental techniques and the analytical conclusions of previous investigators in the more general field of solid bodies.—Editor.