KAWABATA EVAULATION

SYSTEM
FOM ASSIGNMENT

SUBMITTED TO:
MR. PRANAV VORA

SUBMITTED BY:
ABHINAV
GAURAV KUMAR
RANGNATH RAMAN
VIJIT
DFT-VI

KAWABATA EVAULATION SYSTEM (KES)

Introduction

KES was developed in 1972 by Kawabata and Niwa in order to

evaluate fabric hand properties objectively with help from
the Hand Evaluation and Standardisation Committee
(HESC) in Japan. The system was developed so that fabric
parameters can be measured as quickly as possible with a
very high accuracy and good reproducibility. Kawabata was
first produced in 1973 and widely introduced into the
industry in 1975.

Objective fabric hand evaluation consists of two parts:

I) Primary hand value, and
ii) Fabric mechanical properties related to primary hand

value.
The KES-F system measures fabric properties of tensile,
shearing, compression, surface thickness and weight at low
load condition.

Primary
Hand
Japanese

Touch

Definition

Koshi

Stiffness

A stiff feeling from bending property

Numeri

Smoothness

A mixed feeling come from smooth and soft

feeling

Fukurnami

Fullness and softness

A bulky, rich and well-formed feeling

Shari

Crispness

A feeling of a crisp and rough surface of fabric

Hari

Anti-Drape stiffness

Anti-drape stiffness

Kishimi

Scrooping feeling

Scrooping feeling

Shinayakasa

Flexibility,
feeling

English

soft Soft, flexible and smooth feeling

Parameters
Tensile
LT
WT
RT
EM
Bending
B
2HB
Shearing
G
2HG
2HG5

Description

Unit

Linearity in extension (Higher value, stiff feeling)

Tensile energy (Lower value, hard extension)
Resilience (Lower value, inelastic)
Tensile strain (Extensibility of the fabric)

Nm-1(gf cm cm-2)
%
%

Bending stiffness (Higher value, stiffer fabric)

Bending hysteresis (Higher value, inelastic)

gf cm2 cm-1
gf cm cm-1

Shear rigidity (Higher value, stiffer fabric)

gf cm deg-1
Shear hysteresis (Higher value, inelastic)
gf cm-1
Shear hysteresis at 5 shear angle (Higher value, gf cm-1
inelastic and wrinkle problems)

Compression
LC
Linearity in compression (Higher value, hard feeling)
WC
Compression energy (Lower value, hard feeling)
RC
Resilience (Lower value, inelastic)
Surface
MIU
MMD
SMD

Thickness
T
Weight
W

gf cm cm-2
%

Mean frictional coefficient (Too high or too low, yield m

unusual surface feeling)
Surface frictional roughness (Higher value,
hard feeling)
Surface geometrical roughness (too high or too low,
unusual feeling of surface)
Fabric thickness
mm

Fabric weight per unit area

mg cm-2

KES
KES consists of four instruments
Which includes: Tensile and shearing
Bending
Compression and
Surface friction and thickness.

Tensile and shearing

Fabric is tested under extension

load between 0 and a maximum
force of 500 gf cm-1 (490 Nm-1) for
its tensile properties. The testing
area is 20 cm by 5 cm. The testing is
done in the width (short side)
direction. Fabric is released until it
returns to its original length and a
load extension curve is plotted.
From the graph tensile energy can
be measured based on the area
under the load strain curve.

Meanwhile, for SHEAR properties, the

sample is sheared at an 8 angle along
the longer side of the fabric under a
constant tension of 10 gf cm-1. A graph
of shear strain and stress is produced
as shown in Figure 2-5. From the
graph, shear stiffness (G) can be
measured based on the slope of the
shear force-shear strain curve. The
hysteresis width of the curve at 0.5
degrees gives a reading of hysteresis
2HG and hysteresis width of curve at 5
degrees gives a reading of hysteresis
2HG5. The KES equipment used is able
to calculate the shear stiffness (G) and
hysteresis 2HG and 2HG5 and give
these values as an output.

Bending
For measuring the bending
property, the fabric is bent
between the curvatures -2.5 and
2.5 cm-1. Figure shows an
example bending curve from
which the bending rigidity (B)
and moment of hysteresis (2HB)
are measured. Bending rigidity
can be measured by taking the
slope of the bending curve.
Moment of hysteresis is
measured by taking the hysteresis
width of the curve.

Compression
The fabric is placed between two
plates. The fabric thickness is
monitored during the application
of pressure up to the value of 50
gf cm-2 (4.9 kPa). The pressure is
released in order to observe the
recovery process of the fabric. A
graph of load and extension value
is plotted in order to calculate the
LC: Linearity of compression
thickness curve, WC:
Compression energy and RC.
From the graph as shown in Figure
4, the area under the load of
strain curve is measured as
compression energy.

Surface friction and variation

A U-shaped steel wire that has a

diameter of 0.5mm is used for the
surface roughness measurement
as in Figure 2-8 (Saville 1999).
The steel wire is run across the
fabric with a contact force of 10
gf.

Application of KES System

The application of the KES-F system expanded beyond fabric
hand very quickly. One of the most important such
applications is to use the measurements for process control in
clothing manufacture. The values of parameters obtained from
the KES-equipments can be plotted in a control chart. There
are two areas for control zones and one area for non-control
zone. If the value of parameters is too low or too high, usually
the fabric properties fall in the control zones, which mean the
fabric needs to be handled more carefully during the laying,
cutting or sewing processes. Fabrics falling into the noncontrol zone can be handled normally and usually will not
cause any problems during garment production.

Bibliography
Bakar, Bachik Abu. September 2004. SUBJECTIVE AND

OBJECTIVE EVALUATION OF FABRIC HANDLE

CHARACTERISTIC. LEEDS: The University of Leeds.
Ghani, Suzaini Abdul. 2011. Seam Performance: Analysis
and Modelling. 45-56.