Research on physical properties change and damage behavior of cotton fabrics dried in drum-dryer

In order to investigate the impact of the repeated drying in dryer on physical properties of cotton fabric, smoothness appearance (SA), dimensional shrinkage, bending stiffness, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermo-gravimetric analyzer (TGA) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) were employed. Results showed that smoothness appearance grade of cotton fabrics significantly depended on drying cycles during first 15 drying cycles. The dimensional shrinkage of cotton fabric was slight and had no relationship with drying cycles, and the shrinkage in the warp direction (1.29-1.71%) is higher than that of weft direction (0.002-0.045%). The bending stiffness was enhanced by drum-drying based on the bending stiffness data. And found that drying had little effect on thermal stability and crystallinity of cotton fibers. This indicated that drying only affected the appearance physical properties of cotton fabric such as appearance smoothness, dimensional stability, did not change composition and molecular structure. And from multiple levels including fabric-level, yarn-level and fiber-level, explained reasons of fabric properties change (namely, damage behavior). Moreover, this finding is not only helpful to understand of damage mechanisms of cotton fabrics drying in dryer, but also provided reference for dryer manufacturers to accurately specify the types of clothing that can be dried by using a dryer.