Essay Sample: Burning, Resiliency, and Absorbency Tests on Various Fabrics

The Burning Test

The burning experiment was consistent with the book. The hemp fabric burns with a bright flame, curling up and does not leave any melted bead after burning. The smell is like wood and forms an ash gray without any smoke. The unknown fabric 1 does not burn quickly as Hemp fabric. The unknown fabric 2 burns quickly. The 100% cotton does burn but it does not harden or shrivel and neither does it shrink. The burnt 100% cotton smells like a burning paper and forms ashes which are soft and fine to the touch. The same results were achieved from the linen fabric. Linen burns a bit faster compared to cotton but takes longer to ignite and like cotton, it barely shrinks. Once the burning start, it is easily extinguished just by blowing air over it. The wool burning test produced a finer ash than linen and 100% cotton. When it burns, it gives a gives a sizzling sound and curls back and forth away from the flame. If given time, it extinguishes itself leaving a harsh ash from the tip. The smell of wool is like burnt food and forms irregular hard beads that are not easy to crush. However, the book states burnt wool is easy to crush, once crushed it forms a gritty ash. Silk and Acrylic burn with nylon burning to a hardened substance. Silk produces a light smell of burnt meant with Acrylic smelling like grilled burnt fish which is similar to the book. Just like wool, silk is self-extinguishing and gives very little smoke that appears harmless. The Acrylic burn smell is that of a vegetable similar to the book description. The silk formed beads that were easily crushed than the wool beards while the Acrylic formed irregular beads that are harder to crush. The nylon fabric on burning produced beards that are harder with some beards turning a black color and not crushable at all. Unlike most fabrics, nylon is made from petroleum products, therefore burns at a faster rate and completely shrinks into flames leaving no ash but very lethal fumes The polyester fabric burns, melts and shrivels up while the cotton-Rayon burns but does not curl. Polyester leaves beads that are a bit hard and dark, burns slowly despite being a petroleum product and shows non-extinguishing characteristics. Rayon on the other hand, does not leave any bead when burned, has no flames while burning and sometimes flarew up. The polyester and Rayon fabrics smell like burnt paper which is similar to the book. The cotton Rayon, corduroy and Raffia fabric all burn with smells of burning paper, no strong odor, and lightly burnt smell respectively. The Rayon and corduroy fabrics formed a feathery black ash with the Raffia fabric forming irregular beards that are hard but crushable to ashes.

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Resiliency/wrinkle Test

The hemp fabric wrinkles easily while the unknown fabric 1 and unknown fabric 2 do not form wrinkles but loses shape under pressure. They both took longer time to return to their original shapes compared to the hemp fabric. The cotton fabric does not have any resilience as it is easily wrinkled although the wool fabric is very resilient, does not form any wrinkles and gets back to its original shape quickly. Linen is tough and does not easily wrinkle. It stands any pressure when compressed and recovers very fast if it wrinkles. The silk fabric did not form any wrinkles because of its tough material. When compressed silk took almost the longest time to lose shape and to return to its original shape. The Rayon fabric is resilient and wrinkle resistance. It is neither as wrinkly as cotton but did not return to its original shape. The polyester-cotton fabric is a bit different from the normal cotton, when exposed to pressure, it formed very few wrinkles and is quite resilient. The results of resilient in the polyester fabric are different from the book as it states polyester has excellent resilience. Polyester fabric slightly forms wrinkles compared to other fabrics, and can only be seen to be losing shape when compressed. The fabric also takes a slightly longer time to return to its original shape. The Nylon fabric is quite resilient with minimum wrinkling but as good as wool. The nylon fabric has good resilience in terms of the wrinkle test. The acrylic fabric was similar to the nylon fabric although more resilient but not as much as silk fabric. The nylon fabric does not return to its full original shape like some fabrics such as cotton, but unlike cotton, it completely forms no wrinkles under pressure. The cotton Rayon fabric was not resilient at all and it formed a lot of wrinkles which proved difficult to remove. Linen was as the same as the cotton Rayon fabric. The Raffia fabric is very resilient and returns to its original shape immediately after the test. The same was observed in wool.

The Absorbency Test

The hemp fabric absorbs water gets heavy and damp. The hemp fabric was less absorbent than the cotton fabric. The cotton fabric is light when dry and it absorbs water quickly. The fabric remains damp for longer but feels stronger when it is wet than when it is dry. The wool fabric is thick and strong before the test. The fabric takes longer to absorb water and is heavier but weaker once it has fully absorbed water. The silk fabric is light wet, strong but weaker than cotton when dry. The silk fabric absorbs water very quickly and feels heavier and damper although the strength factor remains constant. The Rayon fabric is heavyweight when dry and strong. The fabric takes about five to ten minutes before fully absorbing water and feels heavier, damper but weaker once it's fully absorbent. The polyester fabric is light, lose and weak when dry, once it is immersed in water it appears to be absorbing the water. The fabric dries very fast and in reality, did not absorb any water. It is similar in strength before and after absorption. The acrylic fabric when dry is thick and sturdy with a high absorption rate of two seconds. The wet acrylic fabric feels heavier but weaker although it stretches on all sides and feels damp. Once wet the fabric becomes heavier and weaker on all sides. The cotton-Rayon fabric is strong on all sides with an absorption rate of ten minutes. It is damp and stronger when wet. The fabric feels heavier, a little damp but weaker. The Raffia fabric is a little stretchy and similar to wool before and after water absorption.