FDT Fabric Drape Tester

The FDT is designed to test the drape property of all kinds of fabrics — woven, knitted, and nonwoven — across the full range of fabric weights and constructions. A key advantage of the CCD imaging system is that specimens in all colours can be tested without changing the background colour of the instrument. This eliminates the manual background adjustment that many image-based drape testers require when switching between light and dark fabrics, making the FDT well suited to production and QC laboratories that regularly test a diverse range of fabric shades and types within a single shift.

The FDT standard configuration includes specimen clamp plates of Φ120mm and Φ180mm diameter, together with three specimen sampling template sizes — Φ240mm, Φ300mm, and Φ360mm — and calibration plates for 30%, 50%, and 70% reference values. These specimen sizes cover the configurations specified by BS EN 9073, BS 5058, FZ/T 01045, and the other international standards the instrument complies with. The appropriate combination of clamp plate and specimen size is selected according to the test standard being applied, and all templates and clamps are supplied as standard with the instrument.

The turntable rotation speed on the FDT is adjustable from 20 rpm to 300 rpm. Some drape test standards specify measurement at a particular rotation speed to capture the dynamic drape profile — the way a fabric moves and hangs under simulated motion conditions. By supporting a wide speed range, the FDT can comply with the rotation requirements of different standards. Dynamic images captured at the specified rotation speed are processed alongside static images, giving a more complete picture of the fabric's drape behaviour under real-use conditions compared to static-only measurement methods.

The FDT Fabric Drape Tester complies with the following international standards for fabric drape testing: BS EN 9073 (nonwoven fabrics), BS 5058 (woven and knitted fabrics, British Standard), ERT 90-1 (EDANA standard for nonwovens), AFNOR G07-109 (French standard), UNI 8279 (Italian standard), and FZ/T 01045 (Chinese textile industry standard). This broad standards coverage makes the FDT suitable for use in export quality control laboratories and testing facilities that need to certify fabrics against the requirements of multiple international markets.

In traditional drape testers, the operator places a paper ring under the specimen, traces the outline of the shadow projected by the draped fabric onto the ring, cuts out the traced area, and weighs the paper cutout to calculate the drape coefficient. This process is slow, wasteful, and subject to operator variability in tracing and cutting. The FDT replaces this entirely with CCD image capture and digital image analysis — the camera images the drape silhouette directly and the software computes the projected area ratio automatically, eliminating all paper consumables, tracing steps, and weighing, while delivering superior repeatability and accuracy.

The Windows-based measuring software supplied with the FDT offers a variety of charts and data outputs. After each test, the software displays the static drape coefficient, dynamic drape coefficient, lively rate, aesthetic coefficient, stiffness coefficient, and ripple number — providing a comprehensive profile of the fabric's drape characteristics beyond a single coefficient value. Statistical outputs including average, maximum, minimum, and CV are calculated automatically across the test batch. All data can be saved, and the test report can be printed or exported directly from the software interface.

The FDT operates on a standard 220V, 50Hz supply with a power consumption of 120W. The instrument weighs 85 kg and has external dimensions of 630mm (L) × 580mm (W) × 1270mm (H), making it a floor-standing unit that requires a stable, level floor installation. A connected computer is required to run the Windows-based measuring software; in the standard configuration this is supplied with the instrument. No compressed air or special utilities are required beyond the electrical supply, and the instrument should be positioned in a laboratory environment free from strong vibration or draughts that could affect the freely hanging drape of the specimen during image capture.