Fabrics for surgical gowns and the like and method of making same and textile products made therefrom.

摘要

Three reusable surgical/medical fabrics provide improved barrier properties, as reflected by their Suter ratings, and also posses a "hand" similar to a "cotton hand". The Suter ratings are degraded in the order of 10% - 20% after 100 sterile reprocessing cycles. The fabrics are reliable free of pin holes, permitting their use as a single layer barrier panel. The fabrics are woven, respectively, with false twist 100/100 warp yarns and air texturized core and effect 2/60/100 fill yarns; flat trilobal 100/50 warp yarns and air texturized core and effect 2/60/100 fill yarns; and false twist 2/50/34 warp yarns and false twist 150/200 fill yarns. The fabrics are characterized by a minimum porosity of at least 10 x 10<6> pores/square centimeter and maximum average. and mean pore sizes. The fabrics have a thickness of at least .005 inch, a weight of at least 3.5 ounces per square yard and a filament density of at least 2.0 x 10<6> filaments per square inch. Filament density is obtained by increasing the number of picks in the greige construction to at least about 160 in the finished fabric. In two of the fabrics, the bulk of the greige construction is increased by "mechanically" working the fabric in a ''jet drying machine.