Estimation of the tactile ‘pleasantness’ of everyday textile surfaces via mechanical characterisation

Sensorial perception, such as fine tactile perception of a surface, is an important aspect in the material design process, especially for textile materials which are in direct contact with humans. For industry, to dispose of a physical measurement method, without human panel or for a quick pleasantness evaluation is really challenging in many different industrial fields, such as garments, interior automotive surfaces and protective clothing. This study describes a relatively simple approach to calculating the tactile pleasantness of a wide range of textile fabrics and then to compare them relatively to this attribute. The method used three mechanical criteria, linked to the roughness/smoothness, hardness/softness and stickiness/slipperiness, represented respectively by the R z5 (average of the maximum height of the profile) criterion, the transverse compressibility, and a specific criterion called the relative variation of friction. Based on these specific criteria, a pleasantness criterion is proposed, calculated and compared to the perceived pleasantness obtained from a sensorial analysis by a human panel. A linear relationship is obtained between both pleasantness criteria, with a R 2 of 0.76, sufficient for textile material design guide.