In the common understanding, a product's quality is determined by its usage suitability characteristics. The quality is given by the levels of such features that have to be measurable in an objective and reproducible way. But not all characteristics are measurable with apparatus or instruments: e.g. the aspect, the "handle" and other sensory perceptions. All however contribute to the value of the product. Feathers and down are a most evident example.
Given the recent success of the new generation of filling materials (polyester fibres in the form of spheroid flakes, alone or in mixes with feathers), it is necessary that suppliers and customers speak the same "technical jargon" in connection with the possibility of somehow measuring the more important of the performance characteristics.
A. Molina & C. S.p.A. has succeeded in its aim to fine-tune a testing method, transferable to the customers, which can measure the compression and the delayed elastic recovery of the materials for "puffed-out" padding, be they constituted from just one component or from an intimate mix of many components.
The method's soundness was recently proven by the laboratories of the Centro Tessile Cotoniero e Abbigliamento in Busto Arsizio, in the face of repeatable results obtained on a broad range of fillings tested in parallel with an Instron dynamometer (CTC Busto Arsizio) and equipment at A. Molina & C. S.p.A.