• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.117-126
• /
• 2017

In this study, moisture transport characteristics for the woven and knitted fabrics made of 8 kinds of fiber materials using MMT (moisture management tester) were measured and discussed with the Bireck bt MMT and water evaporating rate (WER) measuring methods, which are vertical moisture transport methods. In addition, the drying property by MMT of the eight kinds of specimens was compared and discussed with the results measured by the vertical drying measurement. MMT experimental result which is horizental moisture transport appeared to be similar to the result of the Bireck method, which is the vertical moisture transport experiment. Absortion time measured from drip method of the fabrics made of the bamboo, linen, and cotton/nylon composite fabrics was short and thus they showed best wicking property, which was attributed to the low contact angle on the fabric surface and high porosity of the fabrics due to the staple yarn structure composed of the hydrophilic staple fibers. In drying property of the fabric specimens by MMT, maximum absorption radius of the dry-zone knit and bamboo woven fabrics were the highest and they showed the best drying property, which was a little different result compared with vertical drying measurement method. Half time of the drying rate in the MMT method was highly correlated with the fabric thickness and saturated moisture absortion rate and their regression coefficients were 0.9 and 0.88, respectively. This means that the knitted and woven fabric design technology for retaining good wicking and drying properties of the fabrics with thin fabric thickness is very important for obtaining high functional wear comfort fabrics. In addition, wicking and drying properties of the fabrics made of different fiber materials and with different yarns and fabric structures showed different results according to the measuring methods.