| Collected By: Muhammad Abid Farooq |
Abstract
The pilling of textile fabrics refers to an appearance caused by bunches or balls of tangled fibers held to the surface. This unpleasant appearance can seriously compromise the fabrics acceptability for apparel. Pilling is a characteristic of any man-made fibers. Fabrics containing fibers such as acrylic, nylon, or polyester have a tendency to pill. Abrasion from normal wear and cleaning causes the fibers to unravel and the loose ends ball up on the fabric surface. Natural fibers like cotton, linen, or wool may also pill at times, but the balls of fibers are usually removed during laundering. Pilling is an unpleasant phenomenon associated with spun yarn fabrics especially when they contain synthetics. Synthetic fibers are more readily brought to the surface of fabric due to their smooth surface and circular cross section and due to their higher tensile strength and abrasion resistance; the pills formed take a long time to be abraded by wear. With knit fabric, two more problems occur, viz., "picking" where the abrasion individual fibers work themselves out of yarn loops onto the surface when garment catches a pointed or rough object. When short staple fibers are used in the formation of yarns, the degree of twist is another important factor. Tightly twisted yarns composed of short staple fibers are considered more secure than loosely twisted yarns composed of short staple fibers. Usually the higher the twist of the individual fibers, the moir securely they are bound and the less likely they are to pill.
Introduction
The surface appearance of a textile material is very important to the consumer. Pills are an aesthetic and physical nuisance. The pilling of textile materials fabrics refers to an appearance caused by bunches or balls of tangled fibers held to the surface. This unpleasant appearance can seriously compromise the fabrics acceptability for apparel. Ever since the invention of the loom, fabric producers have observed the phenomenon known as fabric pilling, a process that results in the formation of small fuzzy balls or pills on the fabric surface. In the short term, pilling may lead to unattractive fuzzy fabric; over time, especially with natural fabrics, it can lead to a complete wear-through of the fabric. Pills are developed on a fabric surface in four main stages: fuzz formation, entanglement, growth, and wear-off. In normal wear, a piece of a garment may take a long time to be pilled. To expedite the pilling evaluation, a number of testing machines have been designed to simulate the pilling that occurs in normal wear. Fabrics are forced to form typical pills by tumbling, brushing, or rubbing specimens with abrasive materials in machines, and then are compared with visual standards, which may be actual fabrics or photographs of fabrics, to determine the degree of pilling on a scale ranging from 5 (no pilling) to 1 (very severe pilling).
