Textile Quality Assurance

• Process of designing, producing, evaluating, and checking products to

determine if they meet the desired quality level for a company’s target market

Quality Control
• Inspect products after production
• Separate into firsts and seconds
• Expensive

Quality Assurance
• Quality is incorporated into the product during product
development, production and marketing

Model: Quality Assurance Applied to the Textile

Industry Complex
Quality
• A complex concept used to describe the degree to which a
process, material, product, or service possesses desirable
physical or intangible attributes
Importance of Textile Testing and Analysis

TESTING ANALYSIS

Importance of Textile Testing and Analysis

• Different end uses have different performance requirements
• Testing and analysis provide information concerning both
structure and performance of textile products
• Objective
Performance is hard to define.
– Consumers have certain expectations as to how a product
should perform, and also have some idea as to how long they
expect to be able to use a product.
– Poor performance is easy to recognize...the product, for
whatever reason, fails to live up to the consumers’ expectations.
– Expectations for performance depend strongly on the intended
end-use of the product.

In any good dye house a Quality Control and Quality Assurance systems
should go hand in hand. The knowledge of QC operations should lead to the
formation of good QA systems.
Quality Assurance Elements:
In QA elements we should consider the quality of
all raw materials, right from the processing of
fabric or yarn to all the dyes and chemicals used
and in QC elements we should test the quality of
finished products for the required level of
standards. In both cases the following Textile
Testing Methods can be applied for.

I. Raw Materials and other inputs:

1. Water Quality
a. Hardness
i. bi-carbonate
ii. Carbonates. sulphates and chloride
b. TDS (Total Dissolved Solids)
c. Turbidity
d. Other metals –iron, copper
2. Quality of Auxiliary Chemicals used.
a. Quality of surfactants like wetting, scouring agents
i. Wetting time of wetting agents
ii. Solid content
iii. Ionic nature
iv. Cloud point of non-ionic products
v. foaming characters
b. Quality of sequestering agents
i. Chelating power
ii. pH
iii. solid content
c. Quality of leveling/dispersing agents
i. Ionic nature
ii. concentration required
iii. solid content
iv. suitability for metal complex dyes
d. Quality of Peroxide Stabilizers
i. Solid content
ii. Concentration required for bleaching
e. Quality of peroxide killers
i. Whether it is an enzyme or inorganic product
ii. concentration required for treatment
iii. If it is enzyme, get the test method from the manufacturer himself.
f. Quality of Cationic dye fixing agents
i. Solid content
ii. Free Formaldehyde content
iii.. Degree of Change in tone of a shade
iv. How much light fastness is affected?
g. Quality of Softeners
i. Ionic nature
ii. Degree of softness acquired for a standard concentration
iii. Degree of tone change of a shade
iv. wash Durability. Solid content

h. Determination of Acid Value of a product?

Detailed method to find out the acid value of a product

i. Determination of Polymer content of a binder?

Detailed method to find out the polymer content of a binder.

j. Quality of Dyestuff:
Dyestuff properties and selection method for a combination
 2. Quality of Basic Chemicals used and its concentration.
i Caustic soda – purity and concentration percentage
ii Soda Ash – purity and concentration
iii. Acetic Acid, Hydrochloric acid, Sulphuric acid, Oxalic acid – purity
and concentration
iv. Hydrogen Peroxide – purity and concentration
v. Common Salt – purity, hardness of a particular concentration
vi. Sodium Hypochlorite - concentration
3. Test for Iron and Copper in cotton fibre

II. Quality Control Elements:

1. Physical Properties:
a. Appearance – color and uniformity of finished yarn or fabric - visual
assessment only.
b. Tensile strength of finished yarn
c. CSP of finished yarn
d. Tear strength of finished fabric
e. GSM of fabric of finished
f. Shrinkage Test of Woven fabric and Knit fabric.

2. Finished goods’ Qualities:

1. What is a Grey Scale and Staining Scale? How Fastness grading is done?
2. Fastness to Washing
3. Fastness to Crocking or Rubbing fastness
4. Fastness to water
5. Fastness to perspiration
6. Fastness to peroxide bleach
7. Fastness to Chlorine or Chlorinated Pool water fastness
8. Fastness to Mercerizing
9. Fastness to Hydrolysis
10. Fastness to Dry-cleaning
11. Fastness to light
12. Pilling Tests
13. What is whiteness Index
14. What is total color difference or DE
15. Method of Detecting Starch and PVA
16. Method of testing desizing efficiency
17. Measurement of Absorbency
18. Antimicrobial Tests
19. Flammability Test
Few test are as follows:
Flame resistance (fabric's ability to resist burning)
Crocking resistance (fabric's colorfastness)
Ultra-violet light resistance (fabric's resistance to fading)
Physical properties (fabric's resistance to pilling, seam slippage, and tearing)

Flame resistance

Fabric is mounted in a vertical holder and exposed to an open flame for

a specified amount of time. Once the flame is removed, the after flame
and char length of the test sample are measured against various code
standards to establish a classification.

Tunnel Test:

Fabric is clamped (unadhered method) or glued (adhered method) to a

substrate, which is placed on the ceiling of test chamber and ignited by
a flame below. Fabric is then evaluated for the density of the smoke
formed, the amount of fuel contributed and the extent of the flame
spread.

Crocking resistance

To measure for colorfastness to crocking, the fabric to be tested is rubbed with

squares of white cotton fabric (wet and dry) under controlled pressure for a
specified number of times. The amount of color transferred to the white test
squares is matched to a control chart and a rating is established

Ultra-violet light resistance

To measure for colorfastness to light, the fabric to be tested is exposed under

specific conditions to a controlled light source which simulates the sun's rays. At
timed intervals, the test swatch is compared to a gray scale and the degree of
fading is rated

Physical properties

Brush Pill Test:

Evaluates pilling, which occurs when loose fibers work to the surface after the
fabric is subjected to abrasion. Nylon bristles are used to rub the surface of the
fabric for a specific amount of time. The number of balls or pills that form on the
surface of the fabric are counted, and the fabric is rated accordingly.
Breaking Strength Test:

Measures fabric's ability to resist tearing or breaking when subjected to tension.

Fabric is gripped by clamps at one end while weight is applied to pull it from the
other end.(Performed in both the warp and filling directions.) The number of
pounds required causing the fabric to break or tear determines the rating.

Seam Slippage Test:

To evaluate condition of fabric when pulled apart at a sewn seam.

A seam is sewn in the fabric, which is then clamped at one end and pulled by
weights at the other end. (Performed in both warp and filling directions.) The
weight is increased until seam separates a specified distance. The number of
pounds required to cause this separation determines the rating.