Impact of sewing thread count on seam strength

Abstract

In a garment the strength of seam assembly is termed as Seam strength. Among some other factors, Seam strength is basically functioned by the strength of the thread, type of fabric used for the seam and type of seam in a garment. Breaking of sewing thread or tearing of the fabric at the seam or excessive slippage of yarn to the adjacent stitches or a combination of the aforementioned conditions can cause the failure of seam. The objective of this study is to find out the effect of different sewing thread count on the strength of seam. For this experiment, a fabric having construction (EPI: 75, PPI: 42, Warp count: 10 Ne and Weft count: 8 Ne) has been selected. Then, the samples have been prepared according to ISO 13935-2:1999 method. After that, seam strength of all the samples have been tested using seam strength tester. For this experiment, different stitch like lock stitch 301, chain stitch 401 and different sewing thread count 20/2 Ne, 20/3 Ne & 40/2 Ne have been selected. Finally, the seam strength reports are collected from the machine. From the result, it can be said that if finer count in indirect system sewing thread is used for sewing, higher will be the seam strength. Moreover, the seam produced with chain stitch has the higher seam strength than seam produced by lock stitch seam.