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Textile Standard Allows More Accurate Textile Measurements!
AATCC’s new Ultraviolet (UV) Calibration Program is designed
to increase the quality of electronic data communication within
the textile industry. This program uses a white, optically-brightened
fabric as the calibration standard. The fluorescent whitening agents
(FWAs) used for textiles have different UV absorption properties
than those used for plastics or other non-textile materials. To
establish the required inter-instrument agreement among systems
used to measure textiles, it is important to use a textile material
as the primary UV energy calibration reference standard rather than
the white plaque that is usually supplied with a spectrophotometer.
The UV Calibration Program facilitates accurate UV content adjustment
of the light source of spectrophotometers for use with textile materials,
independent of instrument geometry and the methodology used for
adjusting the amount of UV energy in the instrument.
AATCC Evaluation Procedure 11: Spectrophotometer UV Energy Calibration
Procedure for Optically Brightened Textiles is included with the
UV Calibration Program and will appear in the 2008 AATCC Technical
Manual. The evaluation procedure describes the following:
- The use of
the textile UV calibration standard (TUVCS) for inter-instrument
calibration of UV content in spectrophotometer light sources for
the purpose of measuring white, or light- to medium-colored textiles
that have been optically-brightened with FWAs.
- How to standardize
the amount of UV energy in a spectrophotometer light source by
adjusting it (mechanically or by computation) until the calibrated
value of the light source is in agreement with the CIE Whiteness
Index (CIE WI) of the TUVCS.
Registration for the UV Calibration Program is offered in January,
May, and September.
An annual fee of US$200 includes one certified TUVCS from the AATCC
Technical Center, along with the evaluation procedure two times
per year (at registration and six months later). Multiple instruments
within a facility may use a single subscription.
To participate, or for more information
contact Suzanne Holmes, AATCC; telephone +1 919 549 3537.
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