The preirradiation grafting of acrylic acid (AA) onto poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) had been found to affect the thermal and physical characteristics of fabric. The grafted fabrics with various graft levels were characterized by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, contact angle, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The initial decomposition temperature and T-50 were increased with the increase in degree of grafting. The percentage crystallinity was decreased as the degree of grafting increases. The detailed elemental analysis was done by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The atomic ratio (O-1s/C-1s) was found to increase significantly with increasing the degree of grafting and reached 0.64 at 14.5% grafting from 0.38 for virgin PET. The surface topography and morphology was strongly influenced as the degree of grafting was increased. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 117: 3498-3505, 2010