Frictional study of polymeric textiles

The frictional properties of textile materials have been of interest to material scientists and textile technologists for a number of years. Friction is defined as the resistance to motion when two bodies in contact are set to a relative motion. Friction is the principal physical property- that holds the fibers together to form a fabric. Friction is a complex physical and mechanical phenomenon. Polymeric materials such as textiles fail to obey the classical Amontons' law of friction. This thesis work endeavors to prove the failure of Amontons' classical law of friction using a statistical approach. The nonlinearity between the friction force and the normal load resulted in the de'elopment of a normalized friction factor, "R" The novel normalized friction factor has been used to evaluate the frictional properties of a set of woven and nonwowen fabrics. In addition, research efforts also focused on understanding the surface mechanical properties of needlepunched-thermalbonded nonwoven substrate. The sliding friction apparatus has been conveniently used to characterize the frictional properties of the nonwoven fabric. Results on the frictional study of the nonwoven fabric have been very promising and have proved the effectiveness of the novel friction factor. The thesis also presents a critical appreciation of previous works on the frictional properties of polymeric textiles.