What is the Martindale Fabric test?

Have you heard about the Martindale test for fabric durability? Tests are undertaken on upholstery fabrics to determine the suitability for their usage in your home or office. It tests for abrasive resistance for fabrics and is sometimes known as the ‘rub test’.

 

The Martindale is a unit for quantifying the abrasion resistance of textiles, especially when used for upholstery.

 

The test simulates natural wear of a seat cover, where the textile sample is rubbed against a standard abrasive surface with a specified force. The test equipment works in intervals of 5000 cycles, totalling the wear number (unit: Martindale) of abrasion cycles that leads to the material being worn to a specified degree. The higher the value, the more resistant the material is to abrasion.

 

To create these cycles, the fabric is pulled tight and loaded onto the plates on a Martindale machine. Wire mesh is continually rubbed against the fabric samples in a loose circle motion.

The fabric is continually monitored to see when the fabric fibres begin to break up or are noticeable different in the way they look.

 

How do we read a Martindale test result?

Test results are given as a score of 1000’s of rubs or cycles, and the higher the number is, the more suitable the fabric is for heavier usage. Fabrics are categorised depending on their test results.

 

As a guide:

Decorative (less than 10,000 rubs)

Recommended for decorative purposes (i.e. cushions and accents). Not recommended for general use.

Light Domestic (10,000 to 15,000 rubs)

Recommended for use on furniture that will only receive occasional use.

General Domestic (15,000 to 25,000 rubs)

Recommended for use on the main furniture in the house that may be subjected to everyday use. H

Heavy Duty (25,000 to 30,000 rubs)

Suitable for heavy duty domestic use i.e. use on the main furniture in the house that will be subjected to high levels of everyday use.

Commercial Grade (30,000 plus)

Suitable for heavy duty commercial use and heavy duty domestic use. Suitable for all commercial furniture applications and environments.
 

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