Comparative study of cut and abrasion resistance performance of gloves made from high performance composite yarns

Cut resistant gloves are generally made from different types of high performance composite yarns. To achieve a certain level of cut resistance, material type, material composition and yarn linear density are changed which however make it sometimes difficult to decide the most suitable combination of the materials. In this work, eighteen seamless gloves were made by using core and sheath friction-spun yarns of various linear densities and core types, and their cut resistance performances were compared.For this purpose, eighteen composite yarns with three linear densities i.e. 118 tex (Ne 5), 98 tex (Ne 6) and 84 tex (Ne 7) were made on a friction spinning machine by using 5.55tex (50 denier), 11.11 tex (100 denier), 16.66 tex (150 denier), 33.33 tex (300 denier) multifilament glass yarns, and 89 denier (40 micron) and 139 denier (50 micron) monofilament steel yarn as core and Kevlar®29 staple fiber as sheath. Mechanical tests of the yarns showed that the tensile strength and tenacity of yarns increased as the linear density of glass yarns increased, whereas elongation at break and time to break increased with an increase of linear density of steel monofilament yarn. Coefficient of friction of all the yarns did not show any significant trend. Abrasion and cut resistance of the gloves made from 118 tex (Ne 5) composite yarn with 5.55tex (50 denier) glass yarn as core showed the best results, whereas no significant difference was seen in the dexterity of all the gloves.