FUNDAMENTAL GEOMETRIC MODELLING OF 3DKNITTED SPACER FABRIC

3D knitted spacer fabric is a three dimensional textile structure composing of two surface fabric layerscombined by pile yarns whose thickness changed depending on the final application area. The pile yarns arealternatively bound to the cylinder and dial needles with tuck stitches during the knitting cycle. In this study, afundamental geometric modeling is proposed to predict the yarn consumption of 3D knitted spacer fabric forhome textile application. The model was proposed with very fundamental assumptions. The initial step was tofollow up the yarn path in order to characterize the fabric structure. The theoretical yarn consumption wascompared with the experimental value for two different fabric tightness but having the same fabric design andknit. The samples were manufactured on double-jersey circular knitting machine equipped with spacerattachment. It was found that there was only small deviation between the theory and experiment