Abstract
Knitting forming is an advantage and distinguishing feature of knitting technology. The development of three-dimensional (3D) shaped technology and equipment, making knitted fabrics gradually developed from clothing domain to the industrial field. The automotive industry is one of the biggest markets for industrial textiles. Recently, most car seat covers in domestic market are made by cutting-and-sewing process, while, integrally-formed car seat covers are greatly far from commercial products. Therefore, this paper describes four knitting techniques for producing 3D shaped fabrics, and studies the knitting process of two types of 3D shaped geometries derived from car seat models. In present study, three-dimensional cutting method is used to unfold the two shapes in different ways and two knitting directions of one cutting method for individual 3D geometry are selected to knit on a Stoll computerized knitting machine. A mathematical relationship between 3D geometry and 2D unfolded shaping is established. After the shaping of each part is calculated, the program is made by the Pattern Preparation Unit and the knitting process is completed. The influence of two shaping techniques on the mechanical properties of the fully-fashioned fabric is evaluated, and it is found that compared with transferring-stitches technique, partial-knitting technique has superior mechanical properties. This study provides guides and references for the integrated automotive seat covers.
Highlights
Knitting products with its good extensibility, comfort ability and softness have been applied in various fields, such as clothing, home decoration, automotive, aerospace and medical.[1]
The main content of this paper is to study the knitting methods of two types of 3D shaped geometries which are derived from the car seat
The key to knitting 3D shaped fabric is to transform a 3D geometry into a 2D pattern cut
Summary
Knitting products with its good extensibility, comfort ability and softness have been applied in various fields, such as clothing, home decoration, automotive, aerospace and medical.[1]. The flexibility of flat knitting and integrally-formed technology extends the application of knitting fabric, making it developed from the fashionable field to the industrial field.[2]. Knitting forming is an important feature of knitting technology, including fully integrated-forming and half integrated-forming which can directly make fabric into two and three dimensional (3D) shapes.[3] At present, the research on 3D fabric performs includes various types of tubular fabrics,[4] spherical fabric,[5,6] box-shaped fabric[7] and other complex shaped fabrics.[8] But the poor mechanical properties of knitted fabrics limit its development. The University of Minho in Portugal, Araujo develops a new technology to improve the mechanical properties by inserting straight reinforcing yarns[9].
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