Repellency of Textile Assemblies

Abstract

In a series of studies on the wettability of textile assemblies, apparent contact angles (ϕ) of wax-coated monofilament nylon and polyester mesh screens to water were measured to investigate the effect of the woven structure on the repellency of textiles. Expressions for the liquid-solid and liquid-air interfaces per unit of macroscopic surface area in the Cassie-Baxter equation ( f 1 and f2, respectively) have been derived for mesh screens using several models to calculate the apparent contact angles (ϕ A ) theoretically. Comparison with experimental data has shown that the apparent advancing contact angles of water on wax-coated mesh screens can be quantitatively predicted by the Cassie-Baxter equation when the geometrical structure of the surface is accurately defined.