Material terminology from the homepage of Bainbridge International.

BIAS is the diagonal across a fabric at 45 degrees to the warp and fill.

CREEP is the property of fibers to gradually stretch under a constant load.

CRIMP is the length or waviness added to a yarn due to the over-and-under nature of a woven fabric. Crimp can contribute to the elongation of a fabric under load.

DENIER is the weight in grams for 9000 meters of a given yarn. A higher denier signifies a heavier fiber.

DPI (Denier per Inch) is the total amount of yarn in either the warp or fill (expressed in denier) per inch of fabric.

ELONGATION is the difference between the length of a stretched sample at a specific load and its initial length; expressed in 1/100ths of an inch.

END is an individual warp yarn.

FILL is the yarn or fiber running the width of the fabric at right angles to the warp.

FLEX strength is the ability of a fiber to retain its strength after being folded back and forth. Flex strength is commonly expressed as loss in breaking strength after flutter testing.

MODULUS describes a material's inherent ability to resist stretch. Initial modulus is usually expressed as grams of load per unit of stretch for a certain amount of fiber weight. The higher the initial modulus, the less the fiber will stretch.

1% ELONGATION is the load required to stretch a fabric sample to 1% of its original length; commonly used to indicate the high-load stretch resistance of Dacrons and Polyester / Kevlar laminates.

SAILMAKERS WEIGHT (SM) is the weight of a 36 inch x 28.5 inch sample.

SCRIM is a light weight, loosely formed substrate construction featuring very little crimp. Scrims form the basis for all of Bainbridge's performance laminates.

TAFFETA is a plain-weave fabric with a fine, smooth finish. Taffetas in sailcloth may be either polyester or high modulus fiber and are usually warp oriented. Taffetas are used principally to add durability to laminated sailcloth.

TENACITY is the tensile stress at rupture of a fiber expressed in grams force per denier. Tenacity relates to the breaking strength of fibers, and should not be confused with modulus, which relates more directly with a fiber's ability to resist stretch.

UV resistance measures the effect of sunlight on cloth. UV resistance is usually expressed as the time it would take for a material exposed to sunlight to loose half of it's breaking strength.

WARP is the yarn or fiber running along the length of the fabric.