INDURA Ultra Soft > Value

VALUE

Over the past 20 years data has been collected to help analyze the value equation of INDURA Ultra Soft and INDURA flame resistant fabrics in industrial laundry applications. Through information collected from the marketplace over the past decade, we can document an expected garment life for INDURA Ultra Soft and INDURA. The two parameters that impact most on garment life are the severity of work activity and the fabric’s physical and abrasion resistant characteristics.

It is important to recognize that the flame resistance of INDURA Ultra Soft and INDURA® are guaranteed for the life of the garment regardless of the number of servicings in either home or industrial laundering provided manufacturers laundering instructions are followed.

The Original-INDURA^® 100% Cotton

Westex’s original INDURA flame resistant 100% cotton fabrics are specification materials engineered to provide optimum performance characteristics for industrial protective clothing. Introduced over a decade ago, INDURA fabrics became the first effective competitor to synthetic flame resistant fabrics. Westex utilizes high strength ring-spun yarns in the construction of the base fabric and only the highest quality dyes available for cotton fabrics are used in the dyeing process.

Assuming garments are industrially laundered every other week the following guideline information can be provided for INDURA^® fabrics:

The Advanced-INDURA^® Ultra Soft^® 88% Cotton 12% High Tenacity Nylon

Westex’s INDURA Ultra Soft flame resistant fabrics are a blend of 88% cotton and 12% high tenacity nylon. The nylon fibers are intimately blended with cotton fibers in the warp yarns. These fibers are spun using ring-spinning technology to produce the highest strength fabric possible. The product is engineered to focus the excellent abrasion resistance of the nylon on the face of the fabric to enhance garment wear life, while the cotton fibers are focused towards the skin to optimize comfort.

The fabrics are fully flame resistant and the addition of 12% nylon in no way represents a hazard to the wearer. In fact, as we will highlight later in this brochure the 12% nylon actually enhances the protective performance in some cases, such as an electric arc and flash fire exposures.

The significant increase in the abrasion resistance of INDURA Ultra Soft has been demonstrated to increase the garment life expectancy conservatively by 50% over 100% cotton fabrics. Therefore, assuming garments of INDURA® Ultra Soft® are industrially laundered every other week, the following expected garment wear life can be followed:

*The number of launderings cited above are based on market experience for these types of fabrics and relate to average expected wear life. These estimates do not take into account work activities leading to extreme wear and exposure to thermal sources of high heat and long duration.