Abstract
An investigation is described in which conditions suitable for the rapid ‘ageing’ or ‘annealing’ of wool fabrics were assessed by measurement of the resultant wrinkle-recovery properties. Maximum annealing is shown to be obtained when the fabric is heated at 15% regain (the time taken depending on the temperature of heating) and then slowly cooled. The annealing mechanism is believed to involve molecular rearrangements via labile hydrogen bonds to give a lower energy network. Wetting out of the sample changes this arrangement and results in a lower recovery on subsequent wrinkling.

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