AATCC Announces UV Calibration Program Textile Standard Allows More Accurate Textile Measurements

Research Triangle Park, NC - AATCC's new Ultraviolet (UV) Calibration Program is designed to increase the quality of electronic data communication within the textile industry. The company claims that, 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 ManualThe 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.

For more information or to register, visit www.aatcc.org and click "Technical" or contact Suzanne Holmes, AATCC; telephone +1 919 549 3537, e-mail holmes@aatcc.org.

SOURCE: AATCC