Denier Denial

[Gabe]

Hey, I thought I'd post a note about what "denier" means when it comes to fabric. There's a lot of confusion out there, and the apparel manufacturers do very little to correct the incorrect assumptions.

Denier is a measurement of thread weight, not cloth strength. This is from Wikipedia:

Denier
Denier (/ˈdɛniər/) or den (abbreviated D), a unit of measure for the linear mass density of fibers, is the mass in grams per 9000 meters of the fiber.[4] The denier is based on a natural reference: a single strand of silk is approximately one denier; a 9000-meter strand of silk weighs about one gram. The term denier comes from the French denier, a coin of small value (worth ​1⁄12 sou). Applied to yarn, a denier was held to be equal in weight to 1⁄24 ounce (1.2 g). Microdenier describes filaments that weigh less than 1 g per 9000 m.

There is a difference between filament and total measurements in deniers. Both are defined as above; but the first relates to a single filament of fiber (commonly called denier per filament (DPF)), whereas the second relates to a yarn.

Broader terms, such as fine may be applied, either because the overall yarn is fine or because fibers within this yarn are thin. A 75-denier yarn is considered fine even if it contains only a few fibers, such as thirty 2.5-denier fibers; but a heavier yarn, such as 150 denier, is considered fine only if its fibers are individually as thin as one denier.[4]

The following relationship applies to straight, uniform filaments:

DPF = total denier / quantity of uniform filaments
The denier system of measurement is used on two- and single-filament fibers. Some common calculations are as follows:[5]

1 denier = 1 g / 9000 m
= 0.11 mg/m
In practice, measuring 9000 meters is both time-consuming and unrealistic. Generally a sample of 900 meters is weighed, and the result is multiplied by ten to obtain the denier weight.

A fiber is generally considered a microfiber if it is one denier or less.
A one-denier polyester fiber has a diameter[6] of about ten micrometers.
In tights and pantyhose, the linear density of yarn used in the manufacturing process determines the opacity of the article in the following categories of commerce: ultra sheer (below 10 denier), sheer (10 to 30 denier), semi-opaque (30 to 40 denier), opaque (40 to 70 denier) and thick opaque (70 denier or higher).[7]
For single fibers, instead of weighing, a machine called a vibroscope is used. A known length of the fiber (usually 20 mm) is set to vibrate, and its fundamental frequency measured, allowing the calculation of the mass and thus the linear density.

What you should take away from this is that what the thread is made of is far more important than what it weighs. 500 Denier nylon is not equal to 500 Denier Cordura. And it's not even that predictive of cloth strength, not in a linear fashion. For instance, 200D Cordura isn't 1/2 as strong as 400D Cordura; it's actually much closer than you'd expect.

I'm not posting this to make you feel bad for buying one brand of fabric over another, but to just try to correct mistaken assumptions people may make when selecting riding gear.

 

[Whammy]

Whammy has no denial.. he wears leather.
I don't see any denial in there

Odd how manufacturers get away with the denial though:wtf

 

[Gabe]

Whammy has no denial.. he wears leather.
I don't see any denial in there

Odd how manufacturers get away with the denial though:wtf

Leather is always better than almost any textile...if it’s brand-new roadracing weight. Otherwise it’s a crapshoot. Could be better, could be worse.

 

[RVFRick]

Thanks for sharing.

For the non-metric user 5.6 miles of silk strand weighs as much as a paperclip* Dayum, that's fine! :wow

* 9000 meters = 5.6 miles.
1 gram is the weight of a paper clip or a US dollar bill.

p.s. wonder if a spider's strand is the same diameter as a silk moth's?

 

[Gabe]

Thanks for sharing.

For the non-metric user 5.6 miles of silk strand weighs as much as a paperclip* Dayum, that's fine! :wow

* 9000 meters = 5.6 miles.
1 gram is the weight of a paper clip or a US dollar bill.

p.s. wonder if a spider's strand is the same diameter as a silk moth's?

To find out, you'll have to measure either a spider or silkworm butthole.

 

[MysterYvil]

To find out, you'll have to measure either a spider or silkworm butthole.

Butthole? Is that some kind of spinneret denial?

"A spinneret is a silk-spinning organ of a spider or the larva of an insect. Some adult insects also have spinnerets, such as those borne on the forelegs of Embioptera.[1] Spinnerets are usually on the underside of a spider's abdomen, to the rear.[2] While most spiders have six spinnerets, some have two, four, or eight.[3] They move independently and in concert.

Most spinnerets are not simple structures with a single orifice producing a single thread, but highly complex structures of many microscopic spigots, each producing one filament. This is important partly because it produces the necessary orientation of the protein molecules, without which the silk would be weak and useless. It also permits spiders to combine multiple filaments in different ways to produce many kinds of silk for special purposes."