A study of the influence of frictional heat on sewing threads with Electron Scanning microscopy

In this study, the influence of frictional heat generated during stitching, on the sewing thread is investigated. Sixteen commercial sewing threads were used to sew 3 layers of heavy weight fabric on high speed lockstitch machine. During sewing tests, the needle temperature was measured by Hatra-Sew device for each sewing thread. A scanning electron microscope study of sewn threads show that the frictional heat softened and melted synthetic filament threads and cotton sewing threads can withstand high temperatures. Among all of the sewing threads corespun sewing threads show best sewing performance.