Common sportswear fabrics
Sports functional fabrics are mainly divided into two types:
One is clothing made of functional fabrics for outdoor sports. This type of fabrics are mainly mountaineering suits, ski suits, and jackets. They have a rough style and a stiff feel. They have very high requirements on product performance. They are suitable for use in adventure and harsh environments. It has a protective effect.
The other is clothing made of outdoor leisure functional fabrics, which is defined as outdoor activities when you go out of your home. This type of fabric is mainly casual fashion, exquisite workmanship, soft to the touch, comfortable to wear, suitable for tourism, outdoor activities, etc. .
1. Chemical fibers, especially polyester and polypropylene, are water-repellent fibers, which absorb very little moisture by themselves, but through the capillary effect, they can absorb and conduct along the pores of the fibers and the gaps between the fibers. Moisture. The main reason why this kind of chemical fiber fabric can absorb moisture and wick away sweat is that after it absorbs sweat, the sweat spreads very quickly and can quickly evaporate on the other side of the fabric. In fact, our traditional cotton fiber is also possible for sportswear. However, although cotton fiber has very good moisture absorption properties, its moisture release speed is very slow, and the diffusion speed of sweat is also slow, making it easier to concentrate sweat. Once a person exercises and sweats a lot, after the cotton fiber absorbs sweat, it will feel severely wet and it will be more uncomfortable to stick to the body.
2. From the point of view of fiber structure, most of the fibers used for sportswear fabrics for moisture absorption and perspiration are not conventional fibers with a circular cross section, but fibers with a special cross section, such as the "four-leaf" type, "five "Leaf" type, "Cross" type, etc. Fibers with multi-lobed cross-sections can form many small grooves on their surface, which has a good capillary effect and enhances moisture conductivity. Sometimes the fibers are made into hollow fibers, and many holes are processed in the pore walls of the fibers, which is also based on the same principle. After the water gets on these fibers, it is led away along the pores on the fibers. The reason why this kind of fabric has good evaporative heat dissipation is that once the fabric absorbs sweat, it can quickly diffuse to the surrounding through the capillary effect. For example, a drop of water will quickly spread on the surface of the fabric, and the evaporation area will be larger, and the evaporation rate will be faster. On the contrary, cotton fabrics do not have such a fiber structure. After moisture absorption, they will be concentrated in one area without spreading in a large area. Small areas will evaporate slowly. In addition, cotton itself has the characteristics of slow moisture release. If you sweat more, you will feel uncomfortable. So, nowadays, many sportswear fabrics are basically made of chemical fiber, but the fiber uses a cross-sectional shape to achieve a good capillary effect.
Third, multi-layer chemical fiber fabrics-close-fitting comfort In addition to moisture wicking performance, another reason why sportswear choose chemical fiber fabrics is that this kind of special-shaped cross-section chemical fiber fabrics are not easy to fit. When the chemical fiber is processed into a special-shaped cross-section, its own flexural modulus increases, so it is not easy to fit the body after moisture absorption, and it will not make the skin feel wet. The cotton fiber has a small modulus in the wet state and is easy to fit. Of course, when the clothing is worn next to the body, as long as the human body sweats very little, the comfort of cotton fiber is much stronger than that of conventional synthetic fiber.
We often see multilayer fabrics in the sportswear market. Different fabric layers have different functions. In fact, there was a polyester-cotton fabric on the market many years ago, with cotton inside and polyester outside, realizing a close-fitting comfort. However, this kind of fabric used for sportswear on the market now reverses the positions of chemical fiber and cotton. The cotton is placed on the outside and the chemical fiber is placed on the inside. This is also to enhance moisture absorption and perspiration and dryness. The inner layer is not all chemical fibers, but there are some cotton "wicks". These wick-like things directly contact the human body. With the help of the "cores" and the pores in the inner chemical fiber fabric, the sweat is guided to the outside. Come up with cotton. The inner fabric has good moisture conductivity. If there is no good moisture absorption material on the outside, when the internal chemical fiber absorbs water saturated, people still feel wet. Therefore, when using this kind of fabric (mainly knitted fabric) to make sportswear, when the human body sweats, the inner layer of the garment will not feel particularly wet, because the sweat is led to the outside. Some sportswear suitable for spring and summer are thinner and are made of nylon fabric. After the nylon fabric absorbs moisture, it is easy to stick to the body. If an extra layer of mesh fabric is added inside for isolation, it will not be very close to the body. This is to increase the mesh. The principle of fabric layers to improve comfort is similar to the principle of multilayer chemical fiber fabrics.
In addition, some fabrics on the market are made of several layers of fabrics laminated together. In fact, the above principle is also used, and the purpose is to make the sweat of the human body quickly drain away. In this microclimate environment between human skin and clothes, the water vapor content is reduced as much as possible.
Fourth, elastic fabrics to achieve fit and comfort From the perspective of sportswear, first of all, different sports items have different requirements for style, color and appearance. Secondly, sportswear can not affect people's sports, it must be able to give full play to people's sports ability. Therefore, it is necessary to select suitable performance materials for production according to different sports. For example, shark-skin-like fabrics can be used for swimming; while cycling, gymnastics, skating, and skiing, these sportswear must have a certain degree of flexibility in addition to bright colors. The reason why elastic fabrics are added to sportswear is for the convenience of exercise. When a person exercises, the elbow, knee joint, or hip deforms greatly. If you make the clothes loose in structure, these places will have no restraint during exercise, but they will feel very cumbersome because the clothes are too wide and exercises are not flexible enough. If you add some elastic fabrics to the severely deformed parts of the tailored sportswear, the function will not affect the movement, and the wear will be neat and beautiful. The elasticity of these elastic fabrics is critical. Greater elasticity will have a sense of restraint. When the elasticity is small, it can be deformed easily, and it loses the meaning of existence. Therefore, for the elastic fabrics used locally in sportswear, the elasticity should be just right.
