Technical Textiles Executive

Knitted fabrics range from plain knitted structures, where a yarn is interlooped with itself in a repeated pattern, to three-dimensional constructions where one or more yarns are interlaced in a complex manner which can be tailored to a particular end-use application.

In weft-knitting the loops are made in series. In warp-knitting the loops are made between parallel yarns fed to the machine. The characteristics of the simpler knits are high extensibility and elastic recovery. The more complex constructions offer a wide range of fabric properties. In particular, there has been a recent upsurge in interest in spacer fabrics where two separate fabrics are joined by stiff spacer yarns that keep the fabrics apart and provide cushioning in such applications as car seating and footwear.

In the future, it is expected that knitted structures will play an important role in the integration of electronic systems into textiles through knitted switches and transducers.

Knitted structures are finding many “smart” applications. For example, it has recently been shown that, with a suitable choice of fibre, the permeability of a knitted structure can be made to respond to moisture levels.

	Baltex have developed a range of multi layer fabrics - XD Spacer Fabrics [more info]