ABSTRACT

An important characteristic of fibrous assemblies that contributes to the usefulness of textiles in a wide variety of applications is porosity. Two parameters that generally characterize this attribute are pore volume per unit mass and pore size. The former plays a role in determining the amount of air a material will trap or the amount of fluid a structure will hold [1-3]. Pore size is a parameter that determines the rate at which fluids are imbibed by porous materials [4,5]. These characteristics can also be shown to play key roles in determining the effectiveness of textiles in many other applications, such as surgical products, protective garments, and gas and fluid filtration products [6-8].