Geometrical and mechanical modelings of dry relaxed slack plain-knitted fabrics for the benefit of technical textile applications Part I: a geometrical model

Abstract

In the current literature, there is a lack of knowledge concerning which parameters are effective on relaxed slack plain-knitted conventional fabrics, although slack fabrics (i.e. fabrics with no occurrence of jamming) are commonly used for technical applications. Thus, the present series of works are conducted as further investigation on relaxed slack plain-knitted fabrics. In the present part, Part I, a geometrical model is created based on Kurbak's 1998 model. The created model is then applied to conventional dry, wet and wash relaxed wool plain-knitted slack fabrics. The model is also applied to E-glass dry relaxed technical plain-knitted slack fabric. The applied models are then drawn to scale by using 3DS-Max computer graphical software. At first glance, the loop shapes obtained through the three-dimensional modeling of E-glass fabrics are observed to be similar to the E-glass fabric loops that were recorded in the photographs of the knitted samples. An investigation on the physical conditions for obtaining such a special loop shape is going to be the subject of the following part, Part II.