A novel conductive sensor-based test method to measure longitudinal wicking of fabrics

This paper reports the development of novel vertical wicking instrument which is specially designed to measure the wicking behavior of textile fabrics precisely. The instrument is designed using T-shaped test frame fabricated with tribo-electric fibre glass and electrical conductivity sensors. The developed electrical conductive sensors are capable to measure the time taken for the vertical wicking of water through inter-fibre capillaries with respect to height. The wet fabric allows the electrical current flow between two conductive points of sensor and enables the IoT controller circuit to monitor the time taken for wicking. To improve the accuracy of measuring the wicking behavior, tribo-electric fibre glass is used. The tribo electric fibre glass has electrostatic charges on its surface and induces static cling effect. Static cling is the tendency of light objects such as fabrics to stick (cling) to other objects owing to static electricity. The static cling effect attracts the fabric test sample to make it in contact with conductivity sensor array. The wicking process is carried out without causing obstruction to the movement of water through inter-fibre capillaries. The accuracy of the measured data obtained from the novel instrument is compared with the data of manual standard test procedure (R2> 0.97). The comparison shows that the developed instrument produces more reliable results.