Comparison of a Custom-Made Inexpensive Air Permeability Tester with a Standardized Measurement Instrument

Abstract

The air permeability of a textile fabric belongs to the parameters which characterize its potential applications as garments, filters, airbags, etc. Calculating the air permeability is complicated due to its dependence on many other fabric parameters, such as porosity, thickness, weaving parameters and others, which is why the air permeability is usually measured. Standardized measurement instruments according to EN ISO 9237, however, are expensive and complex, prohibiting small companies or many universities from using them. This is why a simpler and inexpensive test instrument was suggested in a previous paper. Here, we show correlations between the results of the standardized and the custom-made instrument and verify this correlation using fluid dynamics calculations.

Keywords

• air permeability
• fluid dynamics
• EN ISO 9237
• piston
• gravity