Analysis of Pill Box Geometrical Shapes for Kinetics and Pilling of Textile Materials

Abstract Pill boxes with various geometrical shapes, such as triangular, cubical, hexagonal, octagonal, and cylindrical shapes, have been theoretically analyzed for their kinetics and compared with the experimental trials using cotton, viscose, linen, polyester/cotton (P/C) (80/20), P/C (65/35), and polyester/viscose (P/V) (70/30) woven fabrics for pilling behavior. Theoretical analysis revealed that as the number of polygon sides increases, the total sample tube movement increases, which leads to continuous motion; however, in the cylindrical box, the single impact force decreases, while the total impact force of the sample remains the same. As the sliding angle increases, an increase in the total impact force and tube travel time at a decreasing rate is observed; the sliding angle is the inclination angle of the polygon side at which the sample tube starts moving horizontally. Experimental trials have revealed that the hexagonal box is more efficient in the pilling of textiles than the other boxes. These trials have also shown the average pills/in2 to be 3.2, 4.3, 2.7, 4.3, 2.8, and 2.4 for cotton, viscose, P/C (80/20), P/C (65/35), P/V (70/30), and linen, respectively, with the total average number of pills for all materials being 79. Various mechanisms and statistical analyses have been attributed. The overall ranking of the pill boxes has shown that the order of pilling is hexagonal, cubical, octagonal, triangular, and cylindrical.