A new method of measuring the bending rigidity of fabrics and its application to the determination of the their anisotropy

Bending rigidity is a significant property of textiles that influences their further behavior, for example draping and wrinkling. The thorough analysis of draping and wrinkling behavior of textiles requires also knowledge of bending rigidity of the textiles in different directions, the so-called anisotropy of bending rigidity. Anisotropy of bending rigidity has been so far mostly measured on rectangular shaped samples; nevertheless, the circular shape seems to be the ideal one. This article presents device TH-7, which enables one to measure this non-standard circular shaped sample. Comparing the results of measuring of bending rigidity on the standard device KES-FB2 with the results of measuring on device TH-7, we can see a very good correspondence, that is, the value of the correlation coefficient equals 0.9. The described way of measuring the anisotropy of bending rigidity on circular samples will speed up and improve the quality of further research in the field of influence of the textile structure (weave, sett) on bending rigidity and, consequently, on draping and wrinkling of the textile.