When humans exercise, sweat effectively decreases the temperature of the human body dueto the removal of heat by evaporation. However, if a large amount of sweat remains at the surfaceof the apparel or body, heat is not removed effectively, and further sweating occurs. As a result,wet and cold sensations are experienced during and after exercise, respectively. In order to avoidthese uncomfortable sensations, it is desired to develop functional sportswear capable oftransferring the sweat from the human skin immediately to the outside. Therefore, moisturetraort properties of textiles play a pivotal role in the thermo-physiological comfort of the humanbody, which is maintained by perspiring both in vapor and liquid form. The clothing to be wornshould allow fast and directional moisture traort of this perspiration to the atmosphere in orderto maintain the thermal balance of the body. The aim of this research is to produce knitted fabricswith the capability of directional moisture transfer based on controlled wettability at the inner andouter layers. To this end, Janus plain weft knitted fabrics were produced using the platingtechnique. The inner layers were produced using hydrophobic polyester and polypropylene yarns,while the outer layers were produced using hydrophilic raw and dewaxed cotton yarns. The effectof fiber cross-section and yarn linear density on horizontal wicking of the fabrics was investigated,and the best sample was assessed using the moisture management test (MMT). The results showedthat with the increase of yarn fineness, moisture traort properties of the fabrics improve. It wasfound that fibers of triangular cross-section show superior performance over the circular ones.Alkali treatment was performed on samples made of raw cotton yarns to remove the wax, and theeffect of alkali treatment duration on the horizontal wicking was examined. It was found thatsamples treated at 20 min exhibited the best performance, and a further increase in the treatmenttime negatively affected the moisture transfer properties. Also, cotton-polypropylene andpolypropylene-polypropylene knitted fabrics were produced and compared with the cottonpolyesterfabrics. The OMMC index for both the cotton-polypropylene and cotton-polyester fabricswas calculated as 0.8, indicating the high moisture management properties of the fabrics. As far asthe moisture management properties are concerned, polypropylene fiber in the inner layer provideda higher wettability gradient and hence exhibited better performance, which is attributed to itslower moisture regain and low surface energy. The polypropylene-polypropylene fabrics, due to thelack of wettability gradient, showed the weakest performance.
