Abstract
Textile fabrics used for interior and home contact with the human body frequently, hence the importance of comfort including hand should be considered. The assessment methods of comfort for the interior textile materials have not been studied even though there are many previous researches in the field of wear comfort. The relationships between the mechanical properties and interior fabric hands through mechanical testing and statistical analysis tech niques were identified. In this study, 18 kinds of chenille and jacquard fabrics used for seat cover were selected. The Kawabata Evaluation System was used to measure the mechanical properties for 18 fabrics and THV(total hand value) determined by subjective evaluation of 10 participants of an expert panel was also utilized. We ran the stepwise regression analysis to select the most significant mechanical properties and to develop the prediction models for hands. The tensile properties, bending, thickness and the mean deviation of surface friction were selected as the significant mechanical properties affecting fabric hands. In addition, the interior fabrics were categorized into five groups through the cluster analysis using four mechanical properties. The THV, constituent yams, and such fabric structural factors as pile floating area and pattern showed significant differences among five groups. The interior fabric hands are expected to improve through controlling the four mechanical properties by applying the structural factors for fabric design and construction.