Development of a Fabric Lustre Scale

Abstract

Fabric lustre is one of those attributes which affects the visual appearance of a fabric. It is the amount of  specular light the fabric reflects. So far, there is no simple and satisfactory method for either the subjective or objective assessment of fabric lustre since its measurement is complex. A series of experiments were  conducted for the development of a scale for the subjective measurement of fabric lustre. A number of woven fabric samples with varying luster were used for the subjective assessment of lustre by trained assessors. A glossmeter was then used to measure the fabric samples objectively. Simple regression analysis  technique was applied to relate the subjective to the objective lustre data and results indicated a high degree of  agreement between them. The instrumental data were further used to construct a lustre scale which was assessed statistically for its reliability using larger fabric sample population. Furthermore, the lustre of the fabric samples were measured spectrophotometrically and results showed a good correlation between the delta Y values and the grade values of the physical lustre scale.

Keywords: Fabric lustre, lustre scale, glossmeter, spectrophotometer