Investigation of the relationship between draw-textured yarn structural characteristics and comfort performance of PET-based knitted textiles for sportswear

The comfort behavior of textiles relies on the transfer of sensible and insensible sweat which can be obtained by improving the moisture transmission properties of knitted fabrics. This research investigates the impact of primary heater (PH) temperature (150°C, 170°C, 190°C, 210°C) on the structural properties like morphological changes, wicking, crystallinity, and comfort properties such as breathability and moisture transmission properties of 100% PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) based knitted fabric made from draw-textured yarn (DTY). This study establishes a direct connection between yarn structure (crimp, mechanical characteristics, and morphological structure) and fabric performance (moisture management and permeability). The findings demonstrate that increasing the PH temperature to 190°C improves 19% crystallinity from 37% to 44%, promotes better textured and crimp structure, leading to enhance capillary pathways. Consequently, fabric produced at 190°C showed the best performance with overall moisture management capacity rising from 0.0897 to 0.7388 (>700% increase), one-way transport index reaching 306%, wetting time decreasing to 2.059 s, and absorption rate escalating to about 51%/s. Moreover, air and water-vapor permeability also improved by approximately 25%–30% compared to lower temperatures. However, increasing temperature to 210°C, comfort-related measures showed slight deterioration due to partial crimp relaxation and reduced inter-filament spacing. These results offer useful guidance for improving DTY processing conditions demonstrating that regulated PH temperatures (∼190°C) may greatly improve moisture transport and breathability of polyester knitted textiles for sports and functional clothing applications.