Hydroentangled fabrics' excellent properties and low cost offer great opportunities in expanding the market. Although they have many advantages as described above they also have disadvantages such as poor wash durability, lack of acceptable strain recovery and abrasion resistance. Additionally, hydroentanglement fabrics are limited in variety of designs, patterns, and their appearance is fuzzy and less defined as compared with woven and knitted fabrics. Improvement in initial modulus, stretch recovery, wash durability, and aesthetics are needed to expand the markets for spunlace fabrics beyond their traditional end uses. It is thus critical to investigate the effects of key hydroentanglement process variables and fiber parameters on fabric performance. Despite this, little research has been reported that relates fiber properties, forming wire geometry, and jet parameters to fabric performance and aesthetics. There are two factors that limit the share of research results: one is that hydroentangled fabric producers consider the information highly proprietary; also, various hydroentangled technologies and equipment make the results difficult to compare with each other. Although modeling of the energy required to form the fabric (energy absorbed by the fibers during formation) is helpful to understand the hydroentanglement process, published research work is generally limited to experimental investigations.
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