Characterization of Warp Knitted Spacer Fabric for Application in Sports Bra

Women's breasts contain limited anatomic support. Sporting activities create an excessive movement of breasts. It causes generation of continuous stress on the cooper ligaments. Excessive stress on cooper ligaments creates discomfort, pain, embarrassment and also causes the breasts to sag. The effectiveness in reducing breast movement depends on various factors. The factors are related to breast sizes, breast stiffness, running and jumping speed of sport woman and fabric structural parameters by which sports bra are made. However, no work has investigated and characterized spacer fabric based on the curvature of inner body parts under the bra. Characterization of spacer fabric is required on the basis of the real life simulation. The reaction force acting on the breasts during spherical compression of spacer fabric needs to be analyzed. Air and moisture transmission through the fabric, thermal resistance and moisture management properties also need to be characterized along with compression properties. Samples were developed to characterize spacer fabric for the above requirement. This paper analyzes to understand the behavior of warp knitted spacer fabric for spherical compression with different diameter of the spheres and its thermal, air and moisture related comfort characteristics. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is also done for compression property of spacer fabric. It is concluded that spacer fabric may be considered as a very effective component of sports bra for controlling breast movement without compromising with comfort of sports women.