Olive hue visible–near infrared camouflage properties of high speed melt spun poly(ethylene terephthalate) multifilament yarn

• High speed melt spinning of the NIR camouflage PET yarn was successfully done.
• The yarns' geometry in fabric structure had significant effect on the NIR reflectance.
• Ideal camouflage vs. thermal detection cameras needs to spot many parameters.
• Pigments had no destructive effect on the samples' tensile and thermal properties.

High speed melt spinning process was used to produce near infrared (NIR) camouflage poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) partially oriented yarns (POY) against natural olive hue by using C.I. Pigment Green 7 (0.1% weight fraction), C.I. Pigment Yellow 184 (0.05% weight fraction) and carbon black (CB) (0.01% weight fraction). The effect of drawing, texturizing and knitting processes on the reflectance properties of produced sample was evaluated, and it was concluded that knitted fabric by texturized yarns provides optimum simulation with natural olive hue. Also the effect of pigments and the process on the yarns' structure by using the thermal and mechanical tests of yarns was investigated. It was observed that the thermal and mechanical properties of all samples are in an acceptable range.