Three-dimensional fabric structures. Part 2 - Three-dimensional knitted structures for technical textiles applications

The technical textiles market was forecast to grow by 4% per annum worldwide between 2002 and 2010. As a result, in 2010 the technical textiles and industrial nonwovens sector consumed some 23.8 million tonnes of fibre and had a value of $126 billion USD - up from 16.7 million tonnes in 2000 and a value of $90 billion USD. According to the author's estimates, the world technical textiles market was worth $140 billion USD in 2013.Knitted fabric production for technical textiles showed an overall growth of 34.5% from 1995 to 2002 in Western Europe. Over the last decade, knitted fabrics and products have been increasingly designed and developed for a very wide spectrum of technical textile applications. These include automotive textiles, medical textiles, geotextiles, sportswear, safety and protective textiles, and environmental protection textiles, just to name a few major growth areas of technical textiles. Warp and weft knitted spacer materials are being commercially developed for a very wide range of technical textile products, because of a number of unique design opportunities that they offer. Knitted spacer fabrics are a single composite of at least three different substrates integrated together during a single knitting process. The range of materials and structures that are possible are virtually limitless. It is possible to engineer fabrics with specific, tailor-made characteristics and thicknesses ranging from 2 to 60. mm in warp knitting and 2 to 10. mm in weft knitting. The chapter discusses a number of significant developments in both knitting technology and knitted structures for a wide range of specific product applications. Warp and weft knitting spacer technologies are discussed in depth; their present and future potential are critically analysed. The chapter aims to demonstrate that both three-dimensional warp and weft knitting technologies have a significant growth potential in the present and future technical textiles markets worldwide