IMPROVING KNITTED FABRICS BY A STATISTICAL CONTROL OF DIMENSIONAL CHANGES AFTER THE DYEING PROCESS

Abstract

One of the most important problems that cotton knitted fabrics present during the manufacturing process is their dimensional instability, which needs to be minimised. Some of the variables that intervene in fabric shrinkage are related with its structural characteristics, use of fiber when producing yarn, the yarn count used or the dyeing process employed. Conducted under real factory conditions, the present study attempted to model the behaviour of a fabric structure after a dyeing process by contributing several algorithms that calculate dyed fabric stability after the first wash cycle. Small-diameter circular machines are used to produce garments with no side seams. This is the reason why a list of machines that produce the same fabrics for different widths needs to be made available to produce all the sizes of a given garment. Two relaxation states were distingued for interlock fabric: dyed and dry relaxation, and dyed and wash relaxation. The linear density of the yarn employed to produce sample fabric was combed cotton Ne 30. The machines used for optic bleaching were Overflow. To obtain knitting structures with optimum dimensional stability, different statistical tools were used to help us to evaluate all the production process variables (raw material, machines and process) responsible for this variation. This allowed to guarantee product quality without creating costs and losses.

Keywords

• dimensional stability
• shrinkage
• knitted fabric
• prediction
• relaxed fabrics