How to Check the Spirality of Fabric?

Question: How to check the spirality of the fabric? ... asked by Ram

OCS's Answer:
Normally spirality occurred in knitted garments and fabric that made by using twill fabrics. Spirality or twisting in a garment is appeared after washing. As a result one of the side seams comes at front of the garment when wearer wears it. Spirality percentage depends on fabric torque and garment structure.

There are two ways you can measure the spirality of a fabric. One, make a garment sample (half sleeve T-shirt) and measure twisting percentage of garment side seam. In the right side image a garment sample is shown before wash and after wash. Spirality of fabric is measured using formula Spirality% = 100* X/ Y or 100*X/Y’ (Source: Presentation by BVC Products Services, Inc.) Where, X is displacement of side seam at bottom after wash, Y is side seam length and Y’ is T-shirt body length.

Garment Twisting Image courtesy: BVCP Services

Secondly, In case you can’t make T-shirt, still you can perform spirality test by making a fabric bag keeping two ends open. Follow the below steps to measure fabric spirality.

1. Cut a fabric specimen in rectangle shape of 20” X 10” dimension. 20 inch in weft direction and 10 inch in warp or wale direction. 


2. Fold the fabric and join two ends by over edge stitch. It will look like a cylinder. 


3. Mark a square (8’’ X 8’’) with fabric marker on one side of the folded and stitched fabric. 


4. Wash the specimen in washing machine and tumble dry. 


5. Now put the bag on a flat table with its natural fall. Don’t stretch. 


6. Now check and measure displacement of perpendicular line. Suppose displacement is 0.5 inch. 


7. Use the above formula to calculate spirality of the fabric. 


8. Therefore, Spirality of the sample fabric is 6.25% (100*C'C/AC' = 100*0.5/8)

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