Leather Softening by Shearing

Abstract

The research results on leather softening by shearing and the effect of shearing parameters on leather relative elasticity are presented. Leather softening processes have been executed and leather elasticity parameters have been determined by the instruments constructed for the specially defined purposes. It has been stated that employing this particular leather softening technique leather deformation characteristics are of no worse quality when employing soluble technique and for this reason shearing technique of leather softening may be applicable in leather industry. The increase of shearing speed and the number of cycles had no substantial effect on leather elasticity. Having applied the graphical methods with experiment the effect of shearing parameters on one of leather quality indicators – its elasticity - and the calculations of the corresponding dependency equations are presented in the paper.