Why is textile material important? It is well known that a textile material with high resistance to abrasion, such as Cordura®, can stand 100 thousand rubs by Martindale without a mass loss or specimen breakdown. Obviously, this kind of material will abrade a woven wool fabric, and not the other way around. Thus, the question arises whether the determination of Cordura® abrasion resistance, or some other the similar high performance fabric, using the Martindale methods, is suitable or the methods should be modified in order to obtain significant results? In addition to the modification of Martindale in the manner described before , some modifications of standard methods of testing abrasion resistance by Martindale are also possible, all of them aiming at obtaining significant results.
The Department of Materials, Fibres and Textile Testing, the Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb, has been involved in testing high quality fabrics intended for military and police use for some time. A number of high performance fabrics have been investigated and the need to determine wet abrasion resistance showed to be one of the key requirements throughout the investigation. Fabrics intended for military and police uniforms are exposed to a number of physical and chemical agents in the course of regular use, rain and moisture being most frequently encountered. This means that, apart from testing dry abrasion resistance, as required by current standard, standard should be complemented by including testing wet abrasion. Such a method for determining abrasion resistance is particularly suitable for damage detection, as damaged textile materials show more pronounced reduction in strength in wet state.
The advantage of the modification is that the testing proposed can be done using the same methods, procedures and equipment as with dry materials. Similar to the above, permeability of air and resistance to water with good resistance to abrasion are very important for high performance fabrics used by mountain climbers, soldiers, policemen, firemen, etc. The Martindale method can again be ideally modified to suit the purpose; using the same apparatus, procedure and slightly modified methods it offers proper insight into the influence of wear on water or air permeability. Additional knowledge on the impact of testing abrasion resistance, as related to air permeability and water resistance, will be acquired in this way as well.
