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Drape Test

The document discusses the concept of fabric drape, defining it as the ability of a fabric to hang in folds and its importance in garment fit and aesthetics. It reviews various methods for measuring drape, including the Cusick drapemeter and advancements in image analysis technology for objective assessment. The findings highlight the relationship between drape characteristics and fabric mechanical properties, emphasizing the significance of drape in textile quality and design.

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Md Rabbi Hasan
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111 views12 pages

Drape Test

The document discusses the concept of fabric drape, defining it as the ability of a fabric to hang in folds and its importance in garment fit and aesthetics. It reviews various methods for measuring drape, including the Cusick drapemeter and advancements in image analysis technology for objective assessment. The findings highlight the relationship between drape characteristics and fabric mechanical properties, emphasizing the significance of drape in textile quality and design.

Uploaded by

Md Rabbi Hasan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction

According to the Textile Terms and Definitions of the Textile Institute,


“Drape is defined as ‘the ability of a fabric to hang limply in graceful
folds, e.g. the sinusoidal-type folds of a curtain or skirt’.
It refers to the fabric shape as it hangs under its own weight; Cusick
defined the drape of a fabric as ‘a deformation of the fabric produced
by gravity when only part of the fabric is directly supported’. Drape,
together with the effect of seams, determines the way in which a
garment moulds itself to the shape of the body, this being a critical
factor in comfort and aesthetic-related aspects of a garment and its
fit. Ayada and Niwa4 showed that the visual beauty and total quality
of gathered skirts are closely related to the fabric mechanical
properties of bending, shear and fabric weight and can be described
by the parameters of formability, elastic potential and drape.
Measurement of Drape

Fabric drape characteristics and behavior are manifested in the


appearance and fit of the garment and are usually assessed subjectively.
Nevertheless, considerable research and development has been directed
to the routine objective measurement and characterization of drape and
to relate drape, so measured, to objectively measured fabric mechanical
properties, notably bending stiffness and shear stiffness.
Chung presented a detailed review of studies on drape, both static and
dynamic, on both unseamed and seamed fabrics, and investigated the
effect of seam allowance, type and position on woven fabric drape. She
found that bending length increased with the insertion of a vertical
seam, while drape coefficient increased with the addition of radial
seams; increasing the seam allowance had little effect.
Machine

Fig: Cusick drape meter


Pioneering work was carried out by Chuetal who developed a method of
measuring drape by means of the F.R.L. Drapemeter, quantifying drape
as a dimensionless drape coefficient (DC%). Cusick subsequently
developed what has become known as Cusick’s drapemeter (Fig.) and
which is still the standard and most common method of measuring
drape. It has a parallel light source that causes the shape of the draped
fabric to be projected onto a circular paper disc. The drape of a fabric
is popularly defined as the area of the annular ring covered by the
vertical projection of the draped fabric expressed as a percentage of
the area of the flat annular ring of fabric, this being termed the ‘drape
coefficient’. In practice, the contour of the shadow is often traced onto
the paper and cut out for weighing. Cusick defined the drape coefficient
(DC%) as the weight of the paper of the drape shadow (W2) expressed
as a percentage of the paper weight (W1) of the area of the full annular
ring DC% = W2/W1 × 100
Bhatia and Phadke10 stated that since the draped sample will form
pleats it will not remain in one plane and that the traced image is not
necessarily the true projected one. They stated that understanding the
drape mechanism requires a study of the following factors.

A. The drape geometry, i.e. the configuration of the draped sample, the
drape measurement being employed to study the effects of fabric
geometry.

B. The drape diagrams, i.e. the projected 2D simplification of the 3D


draped sample, which contains three significant items:
 The area, which is the basis of the drape coefficient;
 The number of nodes – formed as a result of material
buckling, the phenomenon of buckling, the type of load
applications and the boundary conditions;
 The shape of the nodes – when the nodes are uniform,
the drape diagram is a cyclic function in polar co-
ordinates. Converting these polar coordinates into
rectangular co-ordinates simplifies the analysis
between the shape factor and the drape coefficient.
The drape geometry is predictable from the drape coefficient, the
number of nodes decreasing as the drape coefficient increases (inverse
relationship). Behera and Mishra found a negative correlation between
the number of nodes and fabric bending rigidity.

 Typical examples of ‘drapemeters’ include those of Cusick, F.R.L. and


I.T.F., and the M.I.T. Drape-O-Meter. Other principles of measuring
drape include the force to pull a circular fabric sample at a constant
speed through a ring, the force being termed the ‘drape resistance’ of
the fabric.
 Collier developed a digital drapemeter. Matsudaira et al. used an
image analysis system to measure static and dynamic drape.
Vangheluwe and Kiekens also used image analysis (video digital
camera and computer-based image processing system) to measure the
drape coefficient, while Stylios et al. developed the next generation of
drapemeters, enabling 3D static and dynamic drape to be measured by
means of a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera as a vision sensor.
Image analysis enables many measurements to be made in a
relatively short time. The following are some of the standard test
methods used to measure fabric drape:
 BS 8357;
 BS 5058/EN 9073;
 UNI 8279;
 AFNOR G07-109;
 ERT 90-1.

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