Optimised Martindale specimen holder for DIN EN ISO 12947

In the last 5 years, imat-uve has been working continuously to optimise the specimen holder of the Martindale abrasion test device. Today, at the 55th Man-Made Fibers Congress in Dornbirn, the modified specimen holder will be revealed to the public with the lecture "Advantages of the new Martindale specimen holder in the examination of textile fabrics" by Christoph Bücken and Hannah Luise Dettmer (imat-uve), in collaboration with the company James Heal.

The repeatability and thus the precision of the method DIN EN ISO 12947 and the modified Velcro test with the Martindale instrument on automotive upholstery fabrics with different measuring points and repeated tests, has been criticised for a long time by the experts of the VDA working group. imat-uve therefore revised the method and undertook the necessary technical optimisations on the Martindale tester. The new design of the Martindale specimen holder minimises operator-dependent influences during preparation and clamping of the specimen or the Velcro which before negatively effected the repeatability of tests with the conventional Martindale specimen holder. Through a revised pressure mechanism these negative factors on the accuracy are now drastically reduced and the precision of repeatability with the Martindale test is improved well below ten percent.