A New Approach to Predict the Fabric Shrinkage in Denim Garments after Finishing Treatments

The principal purpose of this work is to develop a new approach to model and predict the fabric shrinkage in denim garments after finishing treatments. This study was carried out on denim blue jeans fabrics of different structures which are transformed into pants. The shrinkage 056 measured at different parts of the pant (waist, hem and knees). A factorial design analysis with 960 experiments conducted under industrial conditions and repeated three times was applied to study the garment shrinkage behaviour. A standard method was modified to characterize the potential shrinkage of the denim garment fabrics and to model their intrinsic shrinkage parameters. Relevant models calculating the fabric shrinkage of the denim garments in the different treated zones of pants according to the finishing treatments are identified and validated in three industrial orders. The obtained results, statistically and industrially validated, show very well the accuracy of the established shrinkage prediction models and their reliability to be applied in industrial scale.