Textile Structure
how cloth is put together
Concept

Node — where it appears

One of the folds a draped specimen falls into, which is a buckling mode set by the fabric's bending length and which the standard test does not record. Their number is a buckling mode count and it carries information the drape coefficient discards, which is why two fabrics can share a coefficient and hang differently.

Named by 2 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

What the drape coefficient answers to. The drape coefficient against the number of folds, and against how far the hem has come in. Over the range a real specimen shows, the fold count barely moves it; the hem radius moves it across almost its whole range.

A drape coefficient is one number for a directional thing

A fabric bends more easily one way than the other — a factor of two is ordinary. The drape test reports a single percentage, and the quantity that carries the directionality is the fold count, which the coefficient is almost blind to.

mechanics · Drape The number the drape test does not record. A 150 mm specimen over a 90 mm pedestal, for fabrics from limp to stiff. The curve is the fold count the buckling argument predicts — three quarters of a power of the specimen's radius over its own bending length — and it runs from 2 folds to 11. The number beside each mark is the drape coefficient the same specimen would report, which moves by a few points across the whole range.

The nodes a drape test throws away

A drape test lays a circular specimen over a pedestal, photographs the shadow and reports one number. The specimen also falls into a definite number of folds, which is a buckling mode set by the fabric's own bending length — and the standard method observes it, does not record it, and reports the number it is least sensitive to.

mechanics · Buckling

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

DrapeDrape coefficientAnisotropyBending lengthBending stiffnessBiasBucklingCantileverFlexural rigidityMeasurementWrinkle

All concepts