Accuracy of thickness measurements on knitted fabrics

The thickness of textiles is measured with a touching system, by lowering a plate of defined weight and size onto the textile surface and detecting the height in which the plate stops. While this measurement usually results in realistic values for woven fabrics, knitted fabrics often show a significant influence of the thickness resulting from the applied weight. A recent research project thus aimed to measure this deviation and determine whether it is suitable to extrapolate the measured height values to the height of the unloaded fabric.