Liquid moisture wicking in textile and inter-fibre pore filling behaviour in yarns: a review

Understanding wicking in textile is essential for creating high-performance, comfortable, and durable fabrics with effective moisture management and hygiene for diverse applications. This review paper provides vital insights into understanding the wicking behaviour in textiles and yarns. It covers various approaches to modelling the wicking process in porous media, spanning from historical medical applications over 100 years ago to the latest technologies such as X-ray tomographic microscopy and neutron radiography. The paper discusses semi-statistical and statistical simulation methods such as Lattice-Boltzmann method along with Voronoi diagrams and multiphase flow algorithms used in computational fluid dynamics. Furthermore, it presents the geometry-based morphology and pore network models and their extension, dynamic pore network models, designed to study the dynamic process of simulating how fluids move through the porous media over time. Particularly, the article highlights the practice of time-resolved X-ray tomographic microscopy and neutron radiography method synchronized with image processing and analysis procedures to comprehend wicking dynamics in yarns and interlacing contact points of the yarn structure assemblies. The review also delves into standard wicking test methods and the new method developed mimicking realistic human sweating rates called SWEAT (single-pore wicking evolution apparatus for textile) for understanding wicking in textile materials.