Assessing the comfort of functional fabrics for smart clothing using subjective evaluation

Sensory investigations of the functional textiles could be an alternative for the quality inspection and control of the products. The purpose of this research is to use subjective evaluation technique for assessing the tactile comfort of some functional textile fabrics based on AATCC Evaluation procedure 5-2011. Blind subjective evaluations and visual subjective evaluations were performed for sensory investigation. Ten fabric-skin-contact and comfort-related sensory properties were used to evaluate the handle of the functional textile fabrics. The reliability of the sensorial data obtained by subjective tests was evaluated using statistical data analysis techniques. A minimum and maximum consensus distances recorded were 0.58 and 1.61, respectively, using a descriptive sensory panel analysis and proves the consistency and similar sensorial perception between panelists. The Pearson correlation coefficient between panelists was up to 96% and hence a strong agreement between the panelist’s judgment. The results allowed to consider the subjective evaluation using a panel of experts could be validated in the case of functional fabrics. For functional textiles, additional visual subjective evaluation should be considered to have a similar human perception in addition to blind subjective evaluation.