Assessment of Surface Geometry of Puckered Area of SeerSucker Woven Fabrics

The crucial feature of seersucker woven fabrics is their surface geometry. In such kinds of woven fabrics, the puckered stripes appear in the warp direction, separated by stripes of smooth fabric. There are practically no methods to assess the seersucker effect and the reproducibility of this effect. In this work, an optical profilometer enabling non-contact assessment of surface geometry was used to measure the shape of the puckered stripes of example seersucker woven fabrics. Waviness amplitude parameters, such as the arithmetic mean height of individual points within the evaluation area, root mean square deviation of points' height within the evaluated area, maximum waviness height, maximum peak height, maximum valley depth, skewness and kurtosis, were analyzed for the puckered stripes of the fabrics. Profiles along the puckered stripes were created to analyze their shape. The results showed that weft yarn type influences the waviness amplitude parameters and shape of the puckered stripes in a statistically significant way. To summarize the results, weft yarns with higher linear density provide the most intense seersucker effect, meaning a wave with the greatest peak height and greatest trough depth. Conversely, weft yarns with the lowest linear density provide less variation in peak height and valley depth but the highest wave frequency. However, the observed differences are associated with the weft yarn type, with linear density being only one of several possible explanatory factors.