Comfort limit and heat protection properties of single layer cotton/nylon-Kermel blended fabrics

Fire and heat protection and thermal comfort properties of cotton/nylon-Kermel blended fabrics have been studied to predict thermal comfort and protection limit of this fabric structure. The results indicate that the cotton/nylon blended with Kermel fabrics, particularly with 30% Kermel fibres, exhibits the highest upper thermal comfort limit and also the widest range of fabric metabolic activity level. The obtained result indicates that all the sample fabrics consisting of 50% cotton fibres have close drying times. The result also shows that the increase in Kermel fibres ratio in blended fabrics has a pronounced effect on prevention of fire diffusion. An increase of Kermel fibres have significant effect on radiant protective performance of fabric samples. The results of vertical wicking and MMT tests show that the addition of Kermel fibres up to 10% significantly detracts these thermal comfort properties. However, the increase of Kermel fibres ratio from 10% to 100% have no significant effect on wicking as well as moisture management properties. The study shows that the blending of Kermel fibre at 30% blend ratio with cotton and nylon enhances thermal comfort limit and heat protection of blended fabrics.