Abstract

Knitted fabrics are the preferred structures in athletic wear in which demand for comfort is a key requirement. Heat and liquid sweat generation during athletic & exercise activities must be transported out and dissipated to the atmosphere. A key property influencing such behaviors is porosity. Two parameters that characterize it are pore size and pore volume. One of the objectives in this research was to come up with models that can predict inter yarn pore size and pore volume for simple weft knitted structures, from fabric particulars, such as courses and Wales, count, yarn size, stitch density, thickness and other geometrical details of the fabric, which characterize the structure. Such a model was developed that was based on the geometry of the unit cell of a single loop. The experimental work in this project involved using a set of 16 knitted fabrics that differ in course count and examining their pore structure and porosity related characteristics. The values of pore size and pore volume were calculated, those of pore size were measured with image analysis, and other parameters. The effects of course count and washing on stitch density, stitch length, fabric thickness and pore size are examined in details.

Keywords

Knitted fabrics, Porosity, Air permeability, Thickness